Legendary NASA Flight Director Gene Kranz awarded the AAS Lifetime Achievement Award
Saturday, May 24, 2025 at 3:35:29p PDT
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Gene Kranz, the legendary NASA Flight Director,who is now 91, was bestowed with the 2024 American Astronautical Society Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding contributions to the field of astronautics.
The award ceremony was held on May 15, at Space Center Houston. The award is given every 10 years. astronautical.org/…
Kranz, who is well-known to most folks here, served as NASA's 2nd Chief Flight Director, directing missions of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, including Apollo 11 and Apollo 13.
Kranz is best known for directing the Mission Control team to save the crew of Apollo 13.
Here are a few pics from the award ceremony -
Legacy
Gene Kranz was present in mission control for over 100 missions. He served as Chief Flight Director during the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, including Apollo 11 and Apollo 13.
Here is a pic of Kranz from 60 years ago in April 30, 1965 at his console in the Mission Operations Control Room in Houston during testing for the Gemini-Titan 4 mission.
Kranz retired in 1994. Gene Kranz celebrated his 91st birthday on Aug 17, 2024.
Apollo 13 and “Failure Is Not an Option”
This scene from the 1995 film "Apollo 13" is one of the most memorable scenes of all time, with Gene Kranz, played by Ed Harris, uttering the famous phrase "Failure Is Not an Option."
Kranz never used that phrase in real life; it was coined by Bill Broyles, one of the screenwriters of the film.
Kranz did embrace the phrase and used it as the title of his 2009 memoir - "Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond."
The Kranz Dictum
Gene Kranz did coin the famous phrase "Tough and Competent" following the Apollo 1 pre-launch accident that killed 3 astronauts — Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Edward White II, and Roger B. Chaffee.
The address below is known as "The Kranz Dictum" and applies to all walks of life. Spaceflight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity, and neglect. Somewhere, somehow, we screwed up.
It could have been in design, build, or test. Whatever it was, we should have caught it.
We were too gung-ho about the schedule and we locked out all of the problems we saw each day in our work.
Every element of the program was in trouble and so were we. The simulators were not working, Mission Control was behind in virtually every area, and the flight and test procedures changed daily.
Nothing we did had any shelf life. Not one of us stood up and said, 'Dammit, stop!'
I don't know what Thompson's committee will find as the cause, but I know what I find. We are the cause! We were not ready! We did not do our job.
We were rolling the dice, hoping that things would come together by launch day, when in our hearts we knew it would take a miracle. We were pushing the schedule and betting that the Cape would slip before we did.
From this day forward, Flight Control will be known by two words: 'Tough' and 'Competent.'
Tough means we are forever accountable for what we do or what we fail to do. We will never again compromise our responsibilities. Every time we walk into Mission Control we will know what we stand for.
Competent means we will never take anything for granted. We will never be found short in our knowledge and in our skills. Mission Control will be perfect.
When you leave this meeting today you will go to your office and the first thing you will do there is to write 'Tough and Competent' on your blackboards. It will never be erased.
Each day when you enter the room these words will remind you of the price paid by Grissom, White, and Chaffee. These words are the price of admission to the ranks of Mission Control.
Leadership
Gene Kranz's new book published in 2023, at the age of 89, focuses on the leadership lessons he learned over the years at NASA. It's called "Tough and Competent: Leadership and Team Chemistry."
Congratulations to Gene Kranz, who probably does not care much for awards, given his legendary status in the Space community.
And kudos to the men and women of NASA whose toughness and competence is unmatched by any other group.
And jeers to the trump regime that wants to drastically cut NASA’s science and astrophysics budget, replace much of its leadership by sycophants, and funnel our tax dollars to defense (offense really), homeland security (aka terrorizing immigrants and Democrats) and to line their own pockets.
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2025/5/24/2323889/-Legendary-NASA-Flight-Director-Gene-Kranz-awarded-the-AAS-Lifetime-Achievement-Award
https://astronautical.org/awards/lifetime/lifetime-photos/