We Need a Gene?Kranz

At no time has the human race been more need of leadership with a steady hand at the tiller than now. Except for a few small pockets of people, everyone knows at this point we are facing an existential threat to the world

If you are familiar with the space program and the Apollo program that landed the first men of the moon you will know him from the landing on the moon. At the time he was the Flight Director for the landing which was covered in exquisite and compelling detail in podcast series from the BBC and narrated by Dr. Kevin Fong: 13 Minutes to the Moon. His role in the successful landing that was instrumental as the lander ran critically short of fuel but he coordinated the huge resources and brainpower of NASA to safely bring Eagle to rest in Tranquility Base. Those final 13 minutes of powered descent can be heard in Episode 11 (although you should listen to all 10 episodes beforehand to fully appreciate these 13 minutes).

But their latest release ( The Apollo 13 Story) focuses on the Apollo 13 mission that suffered a catastrophic explosion in one of their two oxygen tanks placing the mission and crew at extreme risk. His ability to maintain order, direct the resources available towards solutions, but above all to create hope and inspiration for everyone around him was central to turning what others saw as a disaster into "our finest hour”. You get a sense of him with the excellent portrayal by Ed Harris in the Apollo 13 movie

Coronavirus

I hope there is no need to persuade people of the looming crisis facing our world. In what for me was one of many sparks of hope shining through these dark days the spirit of cooperation was captured in this initiative from Alibaba Cloud “ Global MediXchange for Combating COVID-19 “. The Chinese team handling the crisis created and share a detailed handbook of their COVID19 experiences detailing the prevention and treatment. As they stated:

This pandemic is a common challenge faced by mankind in the age of globalization. At this moment, sharing resources, experiences, and lessons, regardless of who you are, is our only chance to win. The real remedy for this pandemic is not isolation, but cooperation.

We are resourceful, and we are capable of fighting this disease, not alone, but together. But for that to happen we need a leader, a “Gene Kranz” who understands the details and has the “ Right Stuff “.

To date, I have not seen that individual emerge. There are many who are playing key parts to this story but none have risen to the level required to lead us to our finest hour. If we are guided by Gene Kranz’s background experience

• Education and Background in Aeronautics and Aviation
• A qualified pilot who flew missions
• He served in the military
• Worked within NASA
• Helped write Procedures (Go/No-Go Decision Making)
• Worked and Integrated distributed teams and Resources

If these elements are a guide then we likely need someone who

• Has a solid science and medicine background
• Has worked in the clinical space
• Served in the military or equivalent rigorous and structured system such as a high performing clinical facility
• Worked within the Infectious Disease Environment (eg WHO, CDC, Epidemiological systems)
• Written Procedures for Disease Management and Critical Care Management of Patients and/or Populations
• Worked and integrated with Disparate Teams from

I’d like to offer up suggestions but don’t have any but perhaps someone out there recognizes these characteristics in themselves or someone else and can rise to the occasion and need of our finest moment

We Can All Contribute

In the meantime — for the rest of us we need to find those small incremental steps we can take to contribute, to be the supporting act to this worldwide pandemic that faces all of us. We can be the scientists, programmers, mission control specialists who provide the inputs, assess the data and problems and provide the distilled insights that created a CO2 removal system that worked using manual covers and duct tape, reduced the power consumption to allow for them to return to earth safely.

I leave you with the “Kranz Dictum” — an address made to his team the day following the disaster of Apollo 1 fire and loss of the astronauts, Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee in 1967

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.

Originally published at https://www.incrementalhealthcare.com on March 19, 2020.