Gavin, virtually all of his colleagues + contemporaries & #Grumman itself have subsequently departed from the scene.
Half a century later, it’s time to finally tell their own story in their own words.
I’m trying to make a start: andrewerickson.com/2020/04/apollo…
“One major result” had been “the ID of the ‘#LMLifeboat’ mission,” which triggered prescient increases in tank size for consumables...
“planners realized that a # of [failures] could be countered by using the LM as a lifeboat & utilizing its propulsion, guidance & control, life support & other systems to return the crew to..vicinity of..atmosphere”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J.…
Grumman would earn no incentive rewards for saving the day for #Apollo13.
#LunarModule
#LunarLifeboat
#LMLifeboat
#Apollo50
#Apollo50th
“We were just about to order when the motel manager leaned over my shoulder,” Gavin recalled. “He said he’d heard there was a problem at #MissionControl & he thought we might like to get over there. That did it for dinner.”
“mid-evening CSM power failure—#LunarLanding aborted—desperate effort to do return mission on #LM—”
“I think all of us had a sense of tension in those hours that we’ve not felt before or since,” he later said.
“One thing we did think about was: ‘Who speaks for the company if there is a catastrophe?’ And we worked that out, & I drew the short straw. My wife quizzed me about this & asked me: ‘What happens if…?’”
andrewerickson.com/2020/04/apollo…
#Apollo13NOW
“Hoarding the consumables was 1st on the list.
...we had to get backup crews in the 2 #LM test modules, 1 in Houston & 1 @ Bethpage”
andrewerickson.com/2020/04/apollo…
By midnight phone call, #JoeGavin recalled #TomKelly from @MITSloan & fellow #LM engineer Howard Wright from @HarvardHBS. They boarded a 2 AM chartered flight for Grumman’s Airport in Bethpage.
andrewerickson.com/2020/04/apollo…
andrewerickson.com/2020/04/apollo…
#GrummanSpirit
#Apollo13NOW
This way, “you could get an answer on almost everything in 1-2 minutes.”
Photo C/O @XuluDelgado
@NASA administrator George Low invited him to leave his post against the glass surrounding #MissionControl to enter the main floor.
The room “just burst into cheering…the atmosphere was…so buoyant…”
andrewerickson.com/2020/04/apollo…
“We were building machines that our friends would operate, not some faceless individuals unknown to us. It was not just ‘put it in a package & ship it.’”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leroy_Gru…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman
The legendary leader, #JoeGavin recalled, “had one basic direction to all of us..‘You bring the pilot back one way or another.’”
andrewerickson.com/2020/04/apollo…
#Apollo13
Most meaningful to him: “I met Orville #Wright before he died… showed Charles #Lindbergh the #LunarModule under construction; [and] survived the anxious hours of #Apollo13.”
If I permit the project to progress in this direction
*Would I go as a pilot?
*Would I ask my best friend to go as a pilot?
*Would I invest my own money?
*Does this action really count?”
The results live on in the families of 3 astronauts who never would have returned home without a conservatively-engineered lifeboat: the #Grumman #LunarModule...
andrewerickson.com/2020/04/apollo…
#THREAD
#Apollo13