THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 14, 1994 TAG: 9411140060
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 110 lines
Muscling through a thick Florida overcast, sprinting more than a mile high in just 36 seconds, the Saturn V rocket was jolted in its tracks. A bolt of lightning coursed through the onboard Apollo spacecraft, knocking out all three fuel cells, burning out gauge sensors and scrambling computer circuits.
A second discharge came 52 seconds into the flight, as the Saturn booster continued to accelerate nearly 3 miles up into the atmosphere.
The mission teetered on disaster. The Apollo 12 crew was literally in the dark for a moment or two, as the trio of astronauts wrestled with resetting and restarting the affected systems.
When they succeeded, flight operations director Christopher C. Kraft took a deep breath of relief. Twenty-five years later, the Hampton native, now retired and an aerospace consultant, hasn't forgotten that anxious moment.
``Many people didn't appreciate the complexity or daring of what we were doing,'' he said. ``We were charting a new course and taking substantial risks. Sitting there in the control center, it was quite a scare.''
Kraft returns to Hampton this week for a public lecture and a fund-raiser at the Virginia Air and Space Center to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Nov. 14, 1969, Apollo 12 launch. Joining Kraft for part of the festivities will be Richard F. ``Dick'' Gordon, Apollo 12 command module pilot.
The Apollo 12 mission came barely three months on the heels of Apollo 11's historic moon landing earlier that year, in July. The November flight was the first of what would be five successful landings on and scientific explorations of the lunar surface.
``You do have the real science starting after Apollo 11,'' said James R. Hansen, author of the soon-to-be released ``Spaceflight Revolution: NASA Langley from Sputnik to Apollo'' and an Auburn University history professor. ``There were some pretty significant scientific results from Apollo. We were able to answer questions about the moon's development.''
Chief among those questions was the age of the moon , its geological characteristics and maturation as a companion miniplanet to Earth. In the last three lunar missions, astronauts tooled around the surface in three specially designed ``moon buggies,'' exploring craters and taking samples of dust and rocks.
For all that was gleaned during the Apollo missions, Hansen says, gaps nonetheless remain in our knowledge and understanding of our closest celestial neighbor.
``It wasn't like there was some secret out there the moon would be able to resolve for us,'' he said. ``Apollo helped to focus the questions better. We still have awfully fundamental questions about the origins of the universe (for which) we don't yet have the answers.''
Kraft is among those hoping the United States will again send its citizens aggressively out to explore that universe. As one of the founders of the U.S. space program - he and colleagues at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton were the technical nucleus of the American space effort - he sounds a decidedly cranky note about the current direction of manned exploration.
Although heartened by reform efforts undertaken by new NASA administrator Daniel S. Goldin, Kraft believes the agency is choked by bureaucracy and hobbled by antiquated management practices.
``I created part of the system. I'm partly responsible,'' he said. ``I developed mission rules, procedural approaches, and we were prepared for any eventuality. That was a necessary evil. But it's no longer the way to do it.''
The chief problem is what Kraft terms ``the Challenger Syndrome.'' In the aftermath of the 1986 explosion of the Challenger space shuttle, NASA has lost nerve, he believes, and is now deathly afraid to take risks of any kind.
``They (NASA) have gotten into a place where they are always afraid. They are afraid they'll fail,'' Kraft said. ``That's horrible. The thing that made us great in the '60s and '70s was failure. By having failure you then were able to bring about success.''
He's working, Kraft says, on innovative management techniques that he hopes might be useful to the agency. He declines to go into any detail, saying only that ``NASA has to become innovative again.''
Meanwhile, he hasn't given up on the dream that propelled him, his fellow colleagues and a corps of astronauts on a series of journeys that historians will write about for centuries. Look up one night when the moon is full and you'll see Kraft's hope in all its glory.
``We won't go back to the moon until it is easy,'' he said. ``When we do go back to the moon, it will because of both scientific and economic benefit. (But) there is no question we'll go back.'' ILLUSTRATION: File and NASA photos
Color and black/white photos
Apollo 12's crew was, from left, Charles Conrad Jr., Richard F.
Gordon and Alan L. Bean. Christopher C. Kraft, inset, was flight
operation director.
SPECIAL EVENTS
This week, the Virginia Air and Space Center at 600 Settlers
Landing Road in Hampton will be commemorating the 25th anniversary
of the Apollo 12 moon mission.
Any visitor who says ``Apollo 12'' during the 10 days of the
original mission, Nov. 14-24, will receive free admission to the
Center's exhibits. Excluded from the free admission is the IMAX
film ``Destiny in Space.''
On Nov. 17, Apollo 12 command module pilot Richard ``Dick''
Gordon will host educational activities for children during the day
and will be a special guest at a 7 p.m. $25-per-ticket fund-raiser
that will also include an appearance by Apollo mission scientist and
Hampton native Christopher ``Chris'' Kraft.
On Nov. 18, Christopher Kraft will present a luncheon lecture on
the Apollo years. Reservations are required and ticket prices are
$10.
For more information on tickets or reservations, call the
Virginia Air and Space Center at 727-0900.
by CNB