In mission control, a young flight director named Gerry Griffin heard Pete Conrad describe, in one breath, the longest list of malfunctions he had ever heard. Griffin couldn’t believe this was happening, not on his first mission as a flight director. He was certain he’d have to abort the flight. His voice calm, Griffin called on John Aaron, the bright, twenty-four-year-old flight controller in charge of the electrical system, and heard only silence. Griffin called again: “What do you see?”
Aaron’s problem was that aside from a bewildering maze of warning lights on his console, there wasn’t anything to see. On his screen, telemetry from the spacecraft had been replaced by an undecipherable pattern of numbers. But Aaron had encountered the same problem during a practice run the year before, and he knew how to fix it. He could visualize the command module instrument panel, and the switch, labeled Signal Condition Equipment, that the astronauts had to set to recover the data. He said quickly and confidently, “Flight, try S-C-E to Aux.”
This control was so obscure that Gerry Griffin had no idea what it was; neither did Capcom Jerry Carr as he radioed the request to Apollo 12. And neither did Pete Conrad. It was Al Bean who knew where to find the switch, and moments later, Aaron had his telemetry back. For some unknown reason, the spacecraft’s fuel cells had been knocked off-line. Unless they could be reconnected, the command module would have only its batteries for power, and they were reserved for reentry. At the flight director’s console, Gerry Griffin weighed the possibility of an abort.
Still the Saturn sped onward. Conrad glanced up and saw bright sunlight. They were above the clouds; they were heading in the right direction. Whatever had happened to them, it hadn’t touched the booster or its guidance system. They’d make it into orbit, but Conrad was afraid he’d wind up with a dead spacecraft when they got there.
The g-meter had passed 3 and was still climbing. Now the intercom buzzed with excited voices, thick with the weight of acceleration: “Try the buses—get the buses back on the line . . . . I’ve lost the event timer . . . . Two minutes, EDS AUTO . . . .”
Bean heard Carr say, “Apollo 12, try and reset your fuel cells now.” Bean was reluctant to do that without knowing what had gone wrong. Conrad said, “Wait for staging.” They were coming up on that chaotic moment when the first stage would drop off and the second stage engines would ignite. Conrad and Gordon told Bean, “Hang on!”
The first stage fell away and the three men were slammed against their harnesses, just as they had expected. Seconds later, Bean revived the stunned fuel cells. Everything was back on line, apparently none the worse for wear. As the second stage did its work, Conrad offered a theory: “I’m not sure we didn’t get hit by lightning.”
Conrad was right. As it lifted off, the Saturn had trailed a column of flame and ionized gases which stretched all the way to the ground. Tearing through the rain clouds it became the world’s longest lightning rod. Thirty-six seconds after liftoff, a bolt of electricity discharged right through Apollo 12 and onto the launch tower 6,000 feet below. The command module had shut itself off in response to the tremendous electrical surge. A second strike at 52 seconds, unnoticed by Conrad and his crew, had wiped out the navigation platform. Both lightning bolts were recorded by an automatic movie camera near the launch pad, as analysts would later discover.
Now, as Bean reconnected the fuel cells, the warning lights blinked out one by one. The platform was still out, but they would deal with that once they were in orbit. “Twelve, Houston,” called Carr. “You’re right smack-dab on the trajectory.” The second stage continued its long, smooth push, and inside Yankee Clipper tension evaporated. Pete Conrad let out a giddy, high-pitched giggle, like a schoolboy who had just sneaked out of class without getting caught. Then he laughed, and Gordon and Bean laughed with him—
“Was that ever a sim they gave us!”
“There were so many lights up there I couldn’t read them all!”
—and they laughed all the way into orbit.
Good thing Sean Duffy wasn't NASA administrator back then...
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