FRONT OF HOUSE
THE ABSENCE OF HEAT | Kent Morris
In light of NASA’ s Artemis II return of mankind toward the Moon, there is a lesson to learn from how NASA started, what it became and what it is now for church tech teams to consider.
Ron Howard’ s Apollo 13 docudrama accurately conveys the 1970 story of NASA’ s third moon landing attempt and showcases the near tragedy of the spaceflight set in motion when a piece of equipment malfunctions and sends the spacecraft on a tumultuous path while essential oxygen and power supplies are quickly eroding. In Howard’ s storytelling, a hero emerges within the Houston control room in the person of Flight Director, Gene Kranz, a complex leader with conflicting attributes of ferocity and tenderness, as demonstrated by his stern tenacity to save the mission while wearing a soft vest made by his wife who hand crafted him a unique pair for each mission. Kranz’ s famous line,“ Failure is not an option” has since been used thousands of times in situations ranging from high school football games to war-torn battlefields as a rallying point toward success when facing daunting challenges.
However, the crux of his statement is not success at all costs or even the avoidance of failure. Rather, Kranz asserts that while failure exists, it is not to be given consideration. Instead only potentially successful actions and plans will be entertained. As a result, engineers, technicians, and staff of all stripes pulled together and found solutions for each step in the rescue operation. In the end, the three astronauts were saved and the mission considered a resounding success. Today, Apollo 13 is honored as one of the greatest movies of all time for its accurate character portrayals and its enduring message of hope.
In contrast to 1970, the NASA of 1986 had replaced the grit and punch of the Apollo era with the business of Space Shuttle journeyman work. Space was now a workplace with the shuttle making regular runs to deliver satellites, perform scientific experiments, and, in the case of flight number 25, send a teacher into space. Schedules were made and kept at all costs. The Challenger orbiter was on its tenth mission on January 28, 1986, when it exploded 73 seconds after liftoff, resulting in the deaths of all seven crew members in front of millions of adults and children tuning in to see a teacher set an education milestone. For NASA, the soul searching began immediately to answer what had changed in the ensuing sixteen years since Gene Kranz emboldened his team to turn tragedy into triumph?
While the mechanical cause of the disaster was the failure of primary and secondary rubber O-rings within the right side solid rocket booster in an unusually frigid ambient environment, the true cause was human arrogance amid a culture focused on“ just make it happen” within the context of a“ can’ t fail” mentality. Managers ignored warnings from engineers inside both NASA and the booster’ s manufacturer, Morton Thiokol. The anti-hero in this case was Allan McDonald, director of the Solid Rocket Motor Project for Morton Thiokol, who refused to sign the launch authorization and was quickly demoted. His warnings, along with those of engineer Roger Boisjoly, came to deadly fruition on that cold Florida morning.
The difference between NASA in 1970 and NASA in 1986 fell to attitude and perspective. The first law of thermodynamics states energy can be neither created nor destroyed, it just transfers. As part of this concept, cold does not exist as a physical entity; it is simply the absence of heat. At the point of total absence of heat, termed absolute zero, matter becomes inert. We measure how cold an object is by how much heat it has. For NASA, the Challenger era culture lies in sharp contrast to that of Apollo 13 with the clear absence of heat, or in NASA’ s case, moral and ethical foundations to shoulder the crisis and navigate the situation. In other words, NASA in 1970 had“ heat”, the moral fiber needed to bring the astronauts home safely while NASA in 1986 did not. The“ heat” was absent. It had eroded and transferred away. NASA in 1986 was there to keep a schedule and ignored any warnings to the contrary. In the redemptive theme of most trilogies, NASA’ s triumphant return to space via Artemis II showcases the lessons learned from focusing on managerial issues at the expense of moral duty and commitment to the greater good.
For church tech teams, the analogy is clear: our moral and ethical authority was etched in stone through commitment that carried us forward through church growth, great challenges, and into the current era. But we cannot fixate on what was. Any attempt to focus solely on the past will result in decline to previous levels while only leaning on the future will lead us quickly off course. The task is clear: keep the legacy heat intact while adding future fuel to the fire. Once it becomes about the gear, meeting a schedule, or“ getting things done”, we lose perspective. This balancing act is delicate, but vital, for it enables us to be wholly what God has intended for us.
As the tech team, we have been entrusted with a special, even precious, entity: the communication of the Gospel. Therefore, let us always be diligent, steadfast, and abounding in our work for we know it is truly a worthwhile endeavor.
Kent Morris Kent Morris is a 47-year veteran of the AVL arena driven by passion for excellence tempered by the knowledge all technology is in a temporal state.
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