Gene Kranz

Human version

Kerbal version

### Awards

Presidential Medal of Freedom, NASA Distinguished Service medal, ESA Leadership Medal

### Trivia

Known to snap loudly at employees if things don't follow his plan

## Spaceflight(s)

### Missions

Expedition 5, International Moon Base mission-2

### Rank

Chief flight director

> "....I don't want another ESTIMATES. I want the Procedures, NOW!!!"
>
>

**Eugene Francis "Gene" Kranz** (born August 17, 1933) is an American aerospace engineer and the Chief Flight Director of the United Nations Space Development Committee — which covers all manned missions undertaken by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the European Space Agency. He also is the head of the Skylab Space Station program.

He is best known for his stern but very effective leadership character at managing space flight operations and crew safety. He absolutely hates being given estimates and has angrily snapped at his employees on several occasions. He also maintains his motto of the importance of that "Failure is Not an Option". Despite his very stern interactions with ground employees, his interactions with astronauts or space travelers seems polite. His employees ironically admire his personality, and also warn each other not to get in his way when tough mission situations arise.

## Early Life

Kranz was born August 17, 1933, in Toledo, Ohio, and attended Central Catholic High School. He grew up on a farm that overlooked the Harrison Ford Jeep production plant. His father, Leo Peter Kranz, was the son of a German immigrant, and served as an Army medic during World War I. His father died in 1940, when Eugene was only seven years old. Kranz has two older sisters, Louise and Helen.

#### Career in the Air Force

His early fascination with flight was apparent in the topic of his high school thesis, entitled *"The Design and Possibilities of the Interplanetary Rocket"*. Following his high school graduation in 1951, Kranz went to college. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Saint Louis University's Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology in 1954, and received his commission as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, completing pilot training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas in 1955. Shortly after receiving his wings, Kranz married Marta Cadena, a daughter of Mexican immigrants who fled from Mexico during the Mexican Revolution. Kranz was sent to South Korea to fly the F-86 Sabre aircraft for patrol operations around the Korean DMZ.
After finishing his tour in Korea, Kranz left the Air Force and went to work for McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, where he assisted with the research and testing of new Surface-to-Air (SAM) and Air-to-Ground missiles for the U.S. Air Force at its Research Center at Holloman Air Force Base. He was honorably discharged from the Air Force Reserve as a Captain in 1972.

## NASA and Leadership career

After completing the research tests at Holloman Air Force Base, Kranz left McDonnell-Douglas and joined the NASA Space Task Group, then at its Langley Research Center in Virginia. Upon joining NASA, he was assigned, by flight director Christopher C. Kraft, as a Mission Control procedures officer for the unmanned Mercury-Redstone 1 (MR-1) test (dubbed in Kranz's autobiography as the "Four-Inch Flight", due to its failure to launch).

As Procedures Officer, Kranz was put in charge of integrating Mercury Control with the Launch Control Team at Cape Canaveral, Florida, writing the "Go/NoGo" procedures that allowed missions to continue as planned or be aborted, along with serving as a sort of switchboard operator between the control center at Cape Canaveral and the agency's fourteen tracking stations and two tracking ships (via Teletype) located across the globe. Kranz performed this role for all unmanned and manned Mercury flights, including the MR-3 and MA-6 flights, which put the first Americans into space and orbit respectively.

After MA-6, he was promoted to Assistant Flight Director for the MA-7 flight of Scott Carpenter in May 1962. He continued in this role for the remaining two Mercury flights and the first three Gemini flights. With the upcoming Gemini flights, he was promoted to the Flight Director level and served his first shift, the so-called "operations shift," for the Gemini 4 mission in 1965, the first U.S. EVA and four-day flight. After Gemini, he served as a Flight Director on odd-numbered Apollo missions, including Apollos 5, 7 and 9, including the first (and only) successful unmanned test of the Lunar Module (Apollo 5). He was serving as Flight Director for Apollo 11 when the Lunar Module *Eagle* landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969.

After the moon landings, Kranz was promoted by President Lyndon B. Johnson and the Administrator of the United Nations Space Committee as Chief Flight Director of both NASA and the European Space Agency. He now leads and directs all mission planning and control employees for all the manned space missions undertaken by the International Astronaut Corps.

#### Character

Gene Kranz is known to be very strict when it comes to mission safety and objectives, and insists that "failure is not an option". He has earned a very distinguished and remarkable reputation for flawlessly leading his mission team to success every time, and has not had any fatal accidents under his belt.

He has an almost zero tolerance policy when it comes to estimates in an emergency situation, and has loudly snapped various times at employees that unfortunately provided him unreliable figures. Gene however have a smooth relationship with employees and astronauts that follow protocol, and often rewards them with sandwiches, free dinner tickets or books.

*See also: Expedition 12 SA-2 astronaut strike*

On only one occasion where Gene Kranz had a formal meeting with one of the astronauts who cut his mission short — Leif Offerdahl of Expedition 12 in desperation to see his girlfriend - who was doing perfectly fine at Uni. On August 6 1983, against protocol and regulations, Leif abandoned his workstation post - with 140 days remaining on his mission, and aborted his contract on various CAD and science project assignments by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte; and boarded the departing Soyuz-Atlantis SA-2 capsule. Upon arrival and return to Earth, he faced disciplinary action by Gene Kranz and the Chief Astronaut. Kranz suspended Leif's place on the astronaut corps and had a serious word with him about why he aborted his mission - where it had very little to no justification, and resulted in a loss of $74 million of scientific work and research to the contracting university.

On April 4th 1984 (on the day of the launch of STS-41D), Kranz held an internal review court meeting with Leif and the NASA administrator about his contract. After a lengthly discussion, plea deal and witness report, Kranz closed the case with a sentance of a 5 year spaceflight suspension period, along with his position reduced to a regular engineering employee at the Space Station Processing Facility, and a 10 year lapse in assignment for scientific objections in a future mission. However shortly after this, rumors erupted about Leif being innocent, and that his deed was actually caused by another individual pressuring him to do it, on the station. US Marshals were flown to the station to investigate this. In the meantime, Leif's annual salary however is unchanged, and ironically he enjoyes working on the ground in the SSPF for this time.

## Spaceflight experience

Gene Kranz has flown on two missions into space.

* Kranz's first mission was on Soyuz-Classic SC-3 (launched in December 1980) to the Skylab Workshop Station on Expedition Five. Gene spent 17 days aboard the space station, and used the communal meeting module as his workplace and sleeping area. He returned to Earth via the Soyuz-2 vehicle.
* Gene's second mission launched on January 7, 1981 en-route to the moon, where he stayed 220 days on the International Moon Base. Along with his crew of 14, he returned on August 14, 1981.