Information AboutJohn Aaron |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT JOHN AARON | |
| year of birth missing | |
| aaron, john | |
| living people | |
| nasa flight controllers | |
| nasa personnel | |
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John W. Aaron is a former NASA engineer and Flight Controller during the Apollo Program . He is widely credited with saving the Apollo 12 mission after it was struck by lightning shortly after liftoff and was one of the central figures during the famous Apollo 13 recovery efforts. EARLY LIFE Aaron was the youngest of eight children born to a struggling southwestern Oklahoma farmer and cattle rancher. He attended Bethany Nazarene College for a year before transferring to Southwestern Oklahoma State University . After graduating, he planned to become a teacher but was hired by NASA and became a EECOM specialist. NASA CAREER Apollo 12 Aaron was a 24 year old EECOM Controller at the time of the Apollo 12 flight. The capsule was struck by lightning 36 seconds after liftoff causing a power surge. Instruments began to malfunction, communication became garbled, and Telemetry data was lost. NASA considered aborting the flight. Several months before the flight, Aaron had been going over simulator data when he, on his own initiative, began examining the obscure ''Signal Condition Equipment'' system and its functions. He became one of the only Flight Controllers who was familiar with the system and its operations. He recommended that the flight crew set the system to "auxiliary" mode to try to restore the system. When he gave the order, "Flight, try SCE to 'Aux'", most of his mission control colleagues had no idea what he was talking about. CapCom asked him to repeat the recommendation. Pete Conrad 's response the order was, "What the hell is that!" Fortunately Alan Bean was familiar with the switch's location and initiated the command. Telemetry was restored and the mission was saved. Apollo 13 Aaron was off duty when the Apollo 13 explosion occurred, but was quickly called to Mission Control to assist in the rescue and recovery effort. Flight Director Gene Kranz put Aaron in charge of the vessel's power supply. He was in charge of rationing the spacecraft's power during the return flight. He is also credited with developing the innovative powerup sequence that allowed the Command Module to conserve enough power for a safe reentry. Going against existing NASA protocol, he ordered the instrumentation system to be turned on last, just before reentry, rather than first. The call was a calculated risk. Without the instrumentation system, the crew and controllers would not know for certain if the cold startup had been successful until the last possible moment before reentry. However without this sequence change, the capsule would have exhausted its battery supply too early to allow for a safe reentry. The crew was safely recovered and Aaron was lauded for his innovation. Later career After the Apollo program ended, Aaron remained at NASA and worked on the Skylab , Space Shuttle , and the aborted Space Station Freedom programs before becoming head of NASA's Engineering Directorate in 1993 . He retired from NASA in 2000 . IN FILM AND BOOKS Aaron was portrayed by actor Loren Dean in the 1995 film '' Apollo 13 '' and by John Travis in the 1998 Mini-series '' From The Earth To The Moon ''. Aaron is prominently featured in Gene Kranz's book, ''Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond'' (ISBN 0743200799). REFERENCES AND EXTERNAL LINKS
All 3 oral history interviews with John are available here: http://pdfdl.oceighty.net/pdf2html.php?url=http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/AaronJW/aaronjw.pdf |
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