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March 22, 2005
The Historic Mission Control
Our six-year-old son is on spring break, so today we packed up and headed down to Space Center Houston--it was our first visit. The Center itself was okay; after we had been there awhile, I said to my wife, "This place is pretty much what I expected, but there's enough interesting stuff here to stay interested." We both added at the same time: "Barely." But overall Space Center was worth it--they had real Apollo, Gemini, and Mercury capsules; some real lunar soil and rocks; a Skylab and orbiter simulator; and lots of kid stuff. (UPDATE: I've been reminded, correctly, by my wife that our kiddo loved the entire experience--he was so excited he was close to launching, himself.)
But then we went on a tram tour of the Johnson Space Center proper (Space Center Houston--the visitor's center--is located directly next door), and the main stop on this particular tour was what's now called "Historic Mission Control," the familiar room from which all US space flights were controlled up to 1996. They seat the tourists in the little VIP auditorium that sits behind a big glass window overlooking the MCC itself. Luckily my wife, the kiddo, and I got a seat in the front row (hey, maybe I sat in the same chair Nixon sat in!). Here's what it looked like today (they've restored all the vintage '60s consoles):
I could never properly describe myself as a world traveler, though I've been in a few places that are steeped in history: Westminster Abbey and the USS Constitution, for example. But I've never felt such a visceral grip of past events as I did today. I'm sure it was due partly to the fact I was such a space freak as a kid: I still can recall seeing on TV the Gemini launches and the news bulletin about the Apollo 1 fire, not to mention all the lunar landings.
But another reason I was so affected is that I recently finished the best non-fiction book I have ever read--Apollo, by Charles Murray (yes that Charles Murray) and Catherine Bly Cox. Why do I think it's the best? First, the prose: it's economical without being austere; transparent yet stylish; and accessible yet precise.
Second, Murray and Cox display an astonishing ability to sniff out the true line of the story, and refuse to allow themselves to be distracted from it. And their story is about the people behind those now-empty consoles, the people behind the scenes. This book is not about astronauts; it's about the thousands of equally talented, driven and fascinating people who supported them.
In the foreword to the new edition (the first 1989 edition was out of print for years) Cox and Murray relate how the computing power of the entire Saturn V stack is less than today's average cell phone. They go on:
The anachronisms point to the biggest change in the way that the story of the Apollo program will be seen as time goes on: The audacity of Apollo becomes more striking as contemporary technology moves farther from the technology that took us to the moon. Consider the case of Ron Howard's film Apollo 13, meticulously accurate in almost everything. Why then do the scenes in Mission Control show colored charts and graphs on the flight controllers' consoles? When the film was shooting, Jerry Bostick, a Flight Operations veteran who was acting as a technical advisor, explained to Howard that he should show the flight controllers looking at black screens filled with columns of white numbers. Howard replied that there are some things that an audience just won't accept, and computer displays as incomprehensible as Bostick described are one of those things.
Contrast the placid picture we took today, with this. In the book this photo appears with the caption, "'Mission Control' to the outside world, the 'MOCR' to the controllers, as seen from Management Row. ... This picture was taken during the Apollo 13 crew's telecast five minutes before the oxygen tank exploded. ... Their quiet evening was about to turn into a nightmare."
Black screens full of columns of white numbers...that's all those guys had to work with, and the lives of those astronauts depended on any random one of those numbers being X, and not Y.
Murray and Cox so completely fleshed out those Mission Control characters, I felt today that they were still there in front of me, "working the problem" of Apollo 13.
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Comments
That photo is great. I love seeing the footage of that room in action when there used to be cigarettes hanging out of everyone's mouths, coffee mugs everywhere, stuff that's probably not allowed in there now. The days of slide-rules, piss, and vinegar.
Posted by: Dave L at March 25, 2005 12:52 AM
Thanks. The archaic technology in that room was just palpable. There was a story in the book about a back room full of support engineers. All they had was a couple of relay consoles up on the wall at one end of the room, so the guys in the back had to use binoculars to check out the numbers.
Posted by: Jeff at March 25, 2005 07:33 AM
Very nice. How does your kid feel about flying?
Posted by: EdWonk at March 26, 2005 08:00 PM
Well, he certainly has no objection to the real kind via Continental Airlines (luckily NASA is only an hour away by car--if the traffic is OK). As it stands right now, he'd rather design the next Mars rover than actually fly to Mars, much to the relief of both of his grannies.
Posted by: Jeff at March 27, 2005 12:03 AM
