The
human factor.
It’s what we must depend on
when all the glittering technology
seems, suddenly, useless.
During a
mission countdown, or even a flight test, so many things would be happening so
fast that you did not have any time for second thoughts or arguments.
You
wanted the debate behind you.
So before the mission, you held meetings to
decide what to do if anything went wrong.
There
was no room in the process for emotion,
no space for fear or doubt,
no time to
stop and think things over.
A launch is an existential moment, much like
combat.
With no time to think about anything,
you had to be prepared to respond
to any contingency—and those contingencies had to be as fully anticipated as
possible before you pushed the button.
You also had to be thoroughly
knowledgeable about the responsibilities of launch control and range safety.
(Gene
Kranz, in Failure is not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13
and Beyond)
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