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Essay on future of space exploration
Essay on future of space exploration
Essay on future of space exploration
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Gene Kranz and Apollo 13
On April 17, 1970, Gene Kranz brought the Apollo 13 spacecraft
safely back to earth demonstrating extraordinary courage and heroism. The
hit film, Apollo 13, chronicles Kranz's struggle to devise the plan that would
bring the ship and its crew of three astronauts home after its oxygen system
failed.
Kranz retired from NASA in 1994 after 37 years of federal service, and
is currently a consultant and speaker. "Failure is not an option", the
motto that carried him through the Apollo 13 crisis, is a major theme of his
motivational message.
After receiving his BS degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Parks
College of St. Louis University in 1954, Kranz was commissioned in the US
Air Force and flew high performance jet fighter aircraft, including the F-80,
F-86 and F-100. In 1958, he worked as a Flight Test Engineer for McDonnell
Aircraft, developing the Quail Decoy Missile for B-52 and B-47.
Kranz joined the NASA Space Task Group at Langley, Virginia in
1960, and was assigned the position of Assistant Flight Director for Project
Mercury. He assumed Flight Director duties for all Project Gemini Missions,
and was Branch Chief for Flight Control Operations. He was selected as
Division Chief for Flight Control in 1968 and continued his duties as Flight
Director for Apollo II Lunar Landing before taking over the leadership of
the Apollo 13 "White Team". Kranz renamed his team the "Tiger Team"
during the Apollo 13 mission as a crisis management term he borrowed from
the military. He was discharged from the Air Force Reserve as a Captain in
1972.
Kranz has received numerous awards and honours, including the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he received from President Nixon for
People make bad choices in life every day, some may be recovered from whereas others have fatal consequences. A reporter named Jon Krakauer wrote a biography called Into The Wild which is about a young man named Chris McCandless who makes a fatal decision which lead to his demise in Alaska. Aron Ralton's book called Between a Rock and a Hard Place is about his near death experience from making a bad choice. His perseverance and problem solving skills become his salvation in the hot and dry terrain of Utah. Chris and Aron were both eager for adventure and both had a love for nature and the outdoors. Chris died because he lacked Aron's prior knowledge of survival tactics, making Chris ill prepared for his journey.
After the accident, Gene Krantz relied on the skills and expertise of his people. A successful leader builds a strong team, but a leader must be able to separate himself/herself from the team to make the best decision. In Apollo 13, Gene empowered his team to come up with a solution for the air scrubbers. By addressing the most critical problem first, he afforded the team time to work on the other problems. The scrubbers were the most critical or they all would have suffocated. By encouraging the team to share expertise and professional opinion and separates himself by taking it all into consideration when making the decision.
As a result of the successful mission that landed the first men on the moon, called the Apollo 11 mission, many people were inspired to provide commentary on this landing. Although these texts describe unique individual purposes about this landing, they all effectively support their purposes through the use of several rhetorical devices.
The Space Race was a 20th century competition between the soviet union And the United States for supremacy in spaceflight ability. The launch date for apollo 13 was originally in March of 1970 but later the launch date switched to april. During one of the countdown demonstrations the Kennedy Space Center encountered problems with the oxygen tanks in the service module. When the apollo 13 mission took off their main goal was to land in the Fra Mauro area on the moon. An explosion in one of the oxygen tanks crippled the spacecraft during the flight and the crew were forced to orbit the moon and return to earth without landing. The Apollo 13 mission was launched on April 11th in the year 1970. For the first few days of the flight the crew ran into a couple minor accidents, but Apollo 13 was looking like the smoothest flight of the program. They aborted the mission after 56 hours of flight due to an explosion in the oxygen tanks. “At 5 ½ minutes after liftoff John Swigert, Fred Haise and James Lovell felt a little vibration then the center engine of the S-II stage shut down two minutes early. This caused the remaining 4 engines to burn 34 seconds longer than planned, and the S-IVB third stage had to burn nine seconds longer to put Apollo 13 in orbit.” (nasa.gov) At 55 hours and 46 minutes the crew was finishing a live tv broadcast showing how well they were doing and how they comfortably lived.
Armies and Navies have clashed since antiquity, but the airplane that enables aerial combat is barely a century old. Airplanes saw widespread combat in the First World War, and, despite the doubts and financial concerns of military leaders of the time, the brave men who fly them have gained their own dedicated military division, the United States Air Force. Billy Mitchell, through his charisma and an image that endeared him in American culture, was an instrumental figure in developing the modern Air Force.
All of the Apollo crews and mission control teams were well trained to operate under high-stress situations. All three crew members were previously test pilots, so they were all experienced in dealing with high-risk situations with no room for error. They were able to effectively communicate the problems they were experiencing back to the crew members in mission control. Both parties were able to communicate calmly and clearly, with little to no change in tone as the accident transpired. The ground crew members related all information to the flight crew, not withholding any information that they deemed pertinent to the
Apollo 11 was such a huge historical turning point because, it not only affected the United States, but it affected the entire world. It was one of the first mass worldwide event, and an estimated 600 million people watched. Apollo 11 caused the world to think more about space and all
On April 13, 1970, NASA's Mission Control heard the five words that no control center ever wants to hear: "We've got a problem here." Jack Swigert, an astronaut aboard the Apollo 13 aircraft, reported the problem of broken down oxygen tanks to the Houston Control Center, less than two days after its takeoff on April 11th. Those at the Control Center in Houston were unsure what had happened to the spacecraft, but knew that some sort of explosion had occurred. This so-called explosion sent Apollo 13 spinning away from the Earth at 2,000 miles per hour, 75 percent of the way to the moon. In order to get the astronauts back to the Earth's atmosphere would be to utilize the moon's gravitational pull and send them back towards home, like a slingshot. However, this procedure would require three days, and this demanded more oxygen and electricity than the crew had available to them. Eugene "Gene" Kranz, head of this flight mission, although looking on in horror, began thinking of solutions to the problem immediately after the Controls were aware of the problem on board. Knowing that the options of refueling the spacecraft with oxygen or retrieve the astronauts himself, he needed to think of a strategy for a safe return. In this sense, if his solution fails, it could result in the biggest catastrophe in NASA history.
Michael Useem’s “Race to Save Apollo 13” centers around the role of flight director Eugene Kranz in the return of the damaged spacecraft containing three American astronauts. It tells of how problems arose in the mission after the explosion of an oxygen tank which took out two fuel cells on the spacecraft Odyssey. Kranz’s responsibility during the mission was to come up with solutions to all the problems and to return the astronauts home safely. “Race To Save Apollo 13” shows how he managed to solve all the issues that came up during the mission under the immense pressures. In his telling of Kranz’s actions during the course of the mission, Useem shows Kranz to demonstrate the leadership principles of organization, communication, and the ability
“A Separate Peace” begins with the main character, Gene Forrester, returning to the Devon School for boys in search of two places from his youth that he has an emotional connection to. The first place is the marble steps of the First Academy Building, and the second is the tree by the river which he finds “smaller, shrunken by age” (Knowles, 14). He comes here so that he can resolve what happened there seventeen years ago and move on with his life; to find peace within himself.
July 21, 1969. American astronaut Neil Armstrong, radios to earth: “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” The control room in Houston, Texas bursts with cheering and applause. Kennedy’s Project Apollo put America in the lead in the Space Race. The Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States was a very big deal. The Apollo Program worked towards establishing the technology to meet other national interests in space, develop man’s capability to work in the lunar environment, and to promote nationalism and achieve preeminence in space for the United States.
Louis Armstrong was known as the King of jazz, a trumpeter and singer who was one of the most influential figures in jazz music. Famous for his innovative methods of playing the trumpet and cornet, he was also a highly talented singer blessed with a powerful voice. Known for his skills on being able improvise, he would bend and twist the many lyrics and melody of a song with dramatic effect. As his popularity grew in the mid-20th century America when racism was more prevalent, he was one of the first African-American entertainers to be highly popular among both the white and the colored segments of the society. Fondly nicknamed Satchmo or Pops by his fans, he is often regarded to be the founding father of jazz as a uniquely American art form. Born into poverty in New Orleans, he had a very difficult childhood after his father abandoned the family. As a young boy, he
On April 10th James "Jim" Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise embarked on one of the most historic missions in NASA history. Three days later on April 13th, while performing a routine stir on the O2 tanks, the Apollo 13 mission suffered a terrible electrical malfunction and was forced to make an emergency return mission. The movie has forever contributed two phrases to our everyday cultural vocabulary, "Houston we have a problem", communicated by Jim Lovell, and "Failure is not an option", voiced by Gene Kranz.
Ron saw this in the real footage, so in his film, Ed Harris (who plays