Apollo 1 - Program Recovery

Program Recovery

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...Competent means we will never take anything for granted... 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.

Gene Kranz called a meeting of his staff in Mission Control three days after the accident, delivering a speech which has subsequently become one of NASA's principles. Speaking of the errors and overall attitude surrounding the Apollo program before the accident, he stated: "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." He reminded the team of the perils and mercilessness of their endeavor, and stated the new requirement that every member of every team in mission control be "tough and competent", requiring nothing less than perfection throughout NASA's programs. 36 years later, following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, then-NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe quoted Kranz's speech, adopting it in principle to honor the lives of Apollo 1's and Columbia's astronauts.