Gene Kranz - Wikipedia

You don't often read about the critical players behind the scenes.

Thank you, my friend Maj Marty Hogan for making us aware that August 17 is the anniversary of the birth of American aerospace engineer, a Korean War fighter pilot, and a retired NASA Flight Director and manager Eugene Francis Kranz.
Happy 86th birthday Eugene Francis Kranz!

Images:
1. Gene Kranz.
2. Gene Kranz (middle) celebrates the successful return of Apollo 13 in the control room.
3. Eugene Kranz F86 Sabre pilot in Korean War

NASA flight director Gene Kranz talks about landing men on the moon
"Gene Kranz spoke with KHOU about the Apollo 11 mission, 50 years after man set foot on the moon."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBC3izQGM6g



1. 2. Background from nationalaviation.org/our-enshrinees/kranz-eugene/
"Eugene Francis Kranz was born on August 17, 1933, in Toledo, Ohio, to Leo and Margaret Kranz, the only son and the youngest of their three children. As a youth during WWII, the soldiers, sailors, and airmen were Gene’s heroes. He followed the war, built model airplanes, and dreamt of becoming a fighter pilot.
Following high school, Gene earned a BS in Aeronautical Engineering from Saint Louis University’s Parks Air College, graduating in 1954. A month shy of age 21, he received a commission in the U. S. Air Force. While waiting for a pilot training slot, he worked in flight test data reduction at the McDonnell Aircraft Company in St. Louis.
In April 1955, Gene began his primary flight training at Spence Air Base in Moutrie, Georgia, and earned his wings in 1956, at the top of his class.
Gene’s initial assignment was Fighter Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base, flying the F-100 Super Sabre with Colonel Gabreski’s 354th Fighter Day Wing.
Kranz was married to Marta Cadena, on April 27, 1957. Over the next nine years they would have six children. Three months after their wedding, Gene received orders to the 58th Fighter-Bomber Wing at K55 Osan, Korea, flying F-86 Sabres.
Following his Korean tour, Gene moved to Air Reserve status and became a civilian flight test engineer for McDonnell Aircraft, developing the Quail Decoy Missile system for the B-47 and B-52 aircraft.
As the Quail program wrapped up, Kranz responded to a magazine ad indicating that NASA was seeking engineers for Project Mercury.
He was hired sight unseen and, two weeks after reporting to NASA Langley Research Center, Gene was selected by NASA’s first flight director, Christopher Kraft, to work in flight operations.
At Cape Canaveral, he wrote the “Go/No-go” countdown and mission procedures for Atlas and Mercury launches.
Gene was assigned as the Procedures Officer for all early Mercury missions. Following John Glenn’s Mercury 6 mission, Gene was promoted to Assistant Flight Director for the remaining Project Mercury and the first three Gemini flights.
In 1965, he was promoted to Flight Director for Gemini.
On January 27, 1967, tragedy struck the space program when astronauts Chaffee, Grissom, and White died in the Apollo 1 launch pad fire. Soon after, Gene addressed his team, defining his will to honesty, purpose and perfection – the qualities of excellence for those in Mission Control. Named the Chief of the Flight Control Division, Kranz was involved in the planning, procedures, training, and conduct of mission operations by the Apollo teams.
With the increased division leadership responsibilities, he continued his Flight Director role but supporting only the odd numbered Apollo missions. These included Apollo 11, when on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to step on the lunar surface.
In April of 1970, the crew of Apollo 13 – Fred Haise, James Lovell and Jack Swigert – were on their way to the moon when a life-threatening oxygen tank explosion crippled their spacecraft.
Kranz and his mission control team led the urgent and complex planning and procedures effort that led to the safe recovery of its crew. For their heroic efforts, the astronauts, mission control teams, and supporting personnel were recognized by President Nixon with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
In 1974, Gene was promoted to Deputy Director of NASA Mission Operations and became its Director in 1983. As Director, he was responsible for more than 6,000 employees with an annual budget of approximately $700 million.
Following the successful Shuttle mission of STS-61 to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, Gene retired in March 1994.
Throughout his Flight Director career, Gene was easily recognized for his flattop haircut and white mission vests, designed and sewn for each mission by his wife Marta. His Apollo 13 vest is now in the Smithsonian. The 1995 Hollywood docu-drama, Apollo 13, in which actor Ed Harris portrays Gene, remains popular today.
Retirement did not end Gene’s involvement in aviation. He constructed an acrobatic bi-plane and flew as the flight engineer for a B-17 Flying Fortress at airshows. His autobiography, “Failure Is Not An Option,” was published in 2000.
Today, Gene speaks on the space program, leadership and teamwork to dozens of corporate, military, civic, and youth groups annually.
Gene Kranz is a 2015 enshrinee of the National Aviation Hall of Fame."

2. Background from .spaceanswers.com/space-exploration/voyager-2-could-be-on-the-brink-of-interstellar-space/
Heroes of Space: Gene Kranz
by Jonathan O'Callaghan, 11 October 2018
Eugene Francis “Gene” Kranz, born in Toledo, Ohio, USA on 17 August 1933, developed an early interest in aeronautics that would lead to a long and distinguished career with NASA.
After growing up on a farm, Kranz headed to Parks College in St. Louis, Missouri to study aeronautical engineering in 1954. He then spent four years in the Air Force before joining NASA, where his first role was at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia in 1960 in the Flight Control Operations Branch of the NASA Space Task Group. His first taste of space came on the first and third Mercury missions, in 1961 and 1962 respectively, during which he integrated Mercury Control with the Launch Control Team. For the fourth Mercury mission he was promoted to Assistant Flight Director, and by the fourth Gemini mission he was serving as Flight Director.
When the Apollo missions were announced, Kranz was assigned to all the odd numbered missions. This included Apollo 11, with Kranz present in the control room when Armstrong and Aldrin stepped on to the surface. He is most famous, however, for his role in the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission. When an oxygen tank ruptured and left the spacecraft stranded in space, it was Kranz’s decisiveness and quick thinking that enabled the astronauts to safely return home.
Kranz was part of the ‘White Team’ (the others being ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’) for Apollo 13 and, as part of the rotation schedule, it just so happened that his team was manning the control room when the problem occurred. Kranz and his team gave the astronauts specific instructions to ensure their survival, which included setting constraints for critical consumables such as oxygen, electricity and water.
Kranz also had to choose between firing the spacecraft’s rockets and returning it home immediately as it drifted away from Earth, or using the Moon to slingshot the Apollo 13 crew back safe and sound. He picked the latter option, despite the longer route, which would prove crucial in the success of bringing the spacecraft home. It was on this mission that Kranz rose to stardom, not only for his exceptional discipline under pressure, but also for his famous white vests that would become iconic of his remarkable career.
Interestingly, Kranz never actually used the phrase “Failure is not an option” during the mission, as was popularised in the Apollo 13 movie. However, he took such a liking to the phrase and its connotations that he used it for the title of his 2000 autobiography.
Kranz later served as flight director through Apollo 17 and also oversaw some of the Skylab missions. He became Director of NASA Mission Operations in 1974, overseeing the launch of the Space Shuttle, before retiring in 1994 after shuttle flight STS-61 successfully repaired the Hubble Space Telescope.
In 2010 he was voted as the second most popular space hero in a Space Foundation survey after Neil Armstrong, a true testament to his popularity and lasting legacy."

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Great director.