Daily Dialogue — January 10, 2014

Gene Kranz: Gentlemen, at this moment, I want you all to forget the flight plan. From this moment on, we are improvising a new mission: How do we get our people home?

Goes to the chalkboard, draws a big circle representing Earth, another smaller circle representing the moon, then draws a line from the Earth to just short of the moon.

Gene Kranz: They are here. Do we turn them around, straight back, direct abort?

NASA controllers instantly start arguing.

Jerry Bostick — FIDO White: No, sir! No, sir! We get them on a free-return trajectory. It’s the option with the fewest question marks for safety.
Gene Kranz: I agree with Jerry. We use the moon’s gravity, slingshot them around.
R.E.T.R.O. White: No, the LEM will not support three guys for that amount of time. I mean, we’ve got to do a direct abort. We do an about-face, we bring the guys right home, right now.
Booster White: Get them back soon, absolutely.
Jerry Bostick — FIDO White: Look, we don’t even know if the Odyssey’s engine’s even working. If there’s been serious damage to this spacecraft…
GUIDO White: They blow up and they die!
R.E.T.R.O. White: That is not the argument! We’re talking about time!

Controllers argue again.

Gene Kranz: Okay, hold it. Let’s hold it down. The only engine we got with enough power for a direct abort is the SPS on the service module. From what Lovell has told us, that could have been damaged in an explosion, so let’s consider that engine dead. We light that thing up, it could blow the whole works. It’s just too risky. We’re not going to take that chance. About the only thing the command module is good for is reentry, so that leaves us with the LEM, which means free-return trajectory. Once we get the guys around the moon, we’ll fire the LEM engine, make a long burn, pick up some speed, and get them home as quickly as we can.

— Apollo 13 (1995), screenplay by William Broyles Jr. and Al Reinert, book by Jim Lovell & Jeffrey Kluger

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Explain the mission, suggested by Shaula Evans.

Trivia: The cast and crew flew between 500 and 600 parabolic arcs in NASA’s KC-135 airplane (nicknamed the “Vomit Comet”) to achieve real weightlessness. Each of the arcs got them 23 seconds of zero gravity. All of these flights were completed in 13 days. The actual KC135 used (NASA serial number N930NA) was decommissioned in 2000 after 27 years of service and is on display at Ellington Field.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Classic explain the mission moment made all the more tense because the crew is flying by the proverbial seat of their pants.

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