Moonshots

The term ‘Moon Shots’ has become popularized by big tech firms like Intel and Google who regularly set huge, seemingly unreachable goals and reach them.

Today, I’d like to share one of my favorite leadership stories about some of the lessons learned from the original Moon Shot.

Let’s go back to the late 1950’s when the Cold War moves to outer space.

1957: ?Soviets launch Sputnik.

?????????????????????????????Four weeks later, they launch Sputnik 2.

1958: NASA is formed.?

?????????????????????????????The first five rockets explode before launch.

1961: Russians send Yuri Gagarin, the first man into space

A couple of months later NASA launches Alan Shepard into space

Despite obvious Soviet superiority, President John F. Kennedy commits to landing a man on the moon and returning him safely home by 1970. This is an extraordinary goal given that we did not even have the technology or the understanding of mathematics and physics to achieve this goal.

BTW- The feature film “Hidden Figures” tells the story of a team of female African-American mathematicians who served in this vital role.

November 1963: JFK the visionary behind NASA and our first ‘Moon Shot,’ is assassinated.

1965: The Soviet Union completes the first spacewalk.

January 1967: During a launch simulation 3 weeks before the first US Apollo mission, the astronauts in the capsule on the launch pad can be heard saying this:

??????????????5:20 pm: “How are we going to get to the moon if we can’t talk between three buildings?”

??????????????6:31 pm “Fire, I smell fire” – Roger Chafee

??????????????6:32 pm?Astronauts Roger Chafee, Gus Grissom, Ed White are dead due to a flash fire.

When we pause for a moment and take that in, it is so hard to imagine what that moment is like. Your colleagues are dead. Something happened and they are gone in an instant.

Imagine yourself going back into work the next day. What do you say to your team?

Gene Kranz, NASA Flight Director in Mission Control, went back the next morning and spoke to the flight engineers in Mission Control.

And this is what he said:

“Spaceflight is terribly unforgiving.

Of carelessness incapacity or neglect

I don’t know what the investigating committee will find as the cause of this accident, but I know what I find.

WE were the cause.

The simulators weren’t ready.

Our software and mission control didn’t function.

Our procedures weren’t complete.

Nothing we did had any shelf-life

And no one stood up and said Dammit ‘Stop!’

From this day forward mission control will be known for two words: Tough and Competent.

????????Tough:

We will never again shirk from our responsibility because we are forever accountable for what we do and what we fail to do.

????????Competent:

We will never take anything for granted.?

We will never stop learning.

When you leave here today, you will write these two words on your blackboard as a constant reminder of the sacrifice made by Grissom, White and Chaffee” Gene Krantz, Flight Director NASA

From that day to 1969 when Neil Armstrong became the first man on the moon, not only beating the Soviets but also the 1970 goal that JFK set, Gene Kranz’s team, with their mantra ‘tough and competent,’ became unstoppable.

The phrase Moon Shot is now used when you want to set big, unthinkable goals. I hope this story has inspired you to define your own mantra, something like ‘Tough and Competent’ to help you when you try and fail. Failure is part of the process – it is the ability to get up, take accountability for your actions, learn, and move forward that is the most important thing to remember.

Reference: This story is detailed in the book Failure is Not an Option by Gene Kranz and you can see him share this speech on YouTube at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zjAteaK9lM