‘Beyond the Moon’: Inside View of Angst and Elation of Space Exploration

Rarely does the History Channel, or any other splicer of yesteryear’s reels, get as complete a chance to depict the soul of an extraordinary human undertaking as Gene Kranz provides in “Beyond the Moon: Failure Is Not an Option II.”

It must be noted that in bringing the story to the channel, Kranz, NASA’s resident missionary at Mission Control for many years, was giving himself another opportunity to sell his life story.

His memoirs came out a few years ago, and before that, in 1995, he was lionized through Ed Harris’ Oscar-nominated performance in “Apollo 13.” But the glory that motivates this man is decidedly larger than his own; his focus is otherworldly.

Kranz amasses not only his memories, but also those of his gifted underlings, many of whom chime in for tonight’s program, a sequel to the History Channel’s 2003 chronicle of the first lunar missions. By lending his imprimatur to these retrospectives, Kranz gets his fellow NASA insiders on camera and off message, as they unpack episodes of guilt, betrayal and grief. They tell stories they could never tell when they were in NASA’s employ, when the organization seemed determined to mask any dissent, miscalculation or danger.

In this startlingly frank retelling of space exploration to date, much of the post-Apollo history at NASA is seasoned with bitterness. The specialists come to feel less than special as their celestial successes are deemed pedestrian by a fickle public or wasteful by grandstanding politicians. Many NASA veterans bemoan that the space program was capable of so much more, had those of us confined to inner space fully considered what could be learned in the outer realm.

“Nearly a half century after reaching the moon, NASA is at a crossroads, searching for a vision it hasn’t had since Apollo,” says Scott Glenn, the narrator, who earned his space props in the 1983 film “The Right Stuff.” If the mission was murky to the public, it was always perfectly mapped out in Kranz’s head.

He comes off as the Vince Lombardi of space travel, leading astronauts beyond their corporal capacity. Clearly, some mental fire made these feats possible, and Kranz knew how to stoke it. In archival film over many decades, he is seen pacing back and forth among the bays of machines as if they were the gridiron sidelines.

In his hindsight debriefings, he is frank about his dashed hopes for the space program, which was used for maximum political benefit and then denied its proposals to walk on Mars, to build a base on the moon. If you look at the numbers, the billions spent at NASA since Apollo could hardly be called a pittance, but forgivably, Kranz still sees the place as an underfinanced workshop.

If he had had his pecuniary druthers, Kranz asserts, space travel could have transformed higher education, science, industry and, he’s not afraid to declare, humanity.

From the thin, pursed lips of this buzz-cut technophile comes some heady oratory. By the end of the program he’s philosophizing about his realizations of “how finite we are,” in contrast with the infinite that he explores in his day job. But the program’s other true achievement is not merely to present Kranz’s agenda. It also shows the subtle but substantial effects of an organization reaching maturity, learning from catastrophe, adjusting to generational change.

No matter how much bureaucratic institutions may dominate the livelihoods of most Americans, you may not wish to see their inner workings in your spare time. But the space program is so thoroughly photographed during life-or-death moments that the day-to-day decision-making can be riveting.

Some days are triumphant, yet the buttoned-down atmosphere prevails even during the space shuttle’s first-ever re-entry and landing. Intricate calibrations guided the spacecraft to the ground as it glided on a 4,000-mile course to land on a 1,300-foot landing strip.

The flight controller on duty warns those gathered at the monitors to confine themselves to a brief outburst of celebration upon touchdown, after which they should return to silent concentration. “Room, get ready for exhilaration,” he says.

On a solemn occasion in 1986, no one at the controls notices the flash of fire at the bottom of the space shuttle Challenger’s solid- rocket booster. Out of the corner of his eye, the flight director, Jay Greene, spots the contrails of the exploding wreckage at the exact moment the viewing public does. His disbelief seems as painful now as then. He humbly, hauntedly vents about the tragedy as the producers insert film clips from that day.

“The look on his face was something you see only a few times in your life,” Kranz recalls. “This horror grips you, becomes almost unimaginable in your ability to live with it. But that is our job, to live with the risk. This is the nature of people who hold lives in their hands.”

The program also winningly captures the culture clash when T- shirted dudes with mutton-chop sideburns first sat among the buzz- cut old-timers, who preferred short-sleeves and ties. To recreate the moment that women arrived at the control bays, the camera pans up a period photograph of Linda Patterson, a flight controller, as the theme from “2001: A Space Odyssey” blares.

Back then, she recalls, veterans were asking one another if this woman or that one had proper qualifications, in full-throated, passive-aggressive conversations that the newcomers could hear.

Ultimately, Kranz’s promotional goals are met, even as he bemoans the measly results. Certainly his era of experts has inspired its successors to think big, to go further with less financing. One relatively new arrival asserts that as a toddler, he first learned to say numerals backward by mimicking rocket countdowns, and then went on to work in mission control.

Through this televised oral history, viewers can finally comprehend the tension that is never explained in the oh-my-golly live coverage of shuttle launchings. Mistakes of leaders and flaws in machines are openly discussed. Controllers fret, curse and anguish for decades over their failings. But above all, NASA’s triumphs emerge as both commonplace and extraordinary, rarely hailed in the years between a few costly, deadly accidents.Airs Sunday

“Beyond the Moon: Failure Is Not an Option II” candidly examines America’s post-Apollo space program from the floor of Mission Control. It airs at 9 tonight on the History Channel and is preceded at 6 by Tom Hanks’ 1995 film, “Apollo 13.”