That night in the crew quarters, according to Apollo 11 crew mate, Michael Collins, Buzz was rather upset about the "crash." According to Collins, "I could not discern whether he was concerned about his actual safety in flight, should Neil repeat this error, or whether he was simply embarrassed to have crashed in front of a roomful of experts in Mission Control." As Buzz continued to complain, Neil suddenly appeared in his pajamas. Collins quickly excused himself, allowing Neil and Buzz to hash it out.
According to Buzz, Neil merely complained that "You guys are making too much noise," saying that he was trying to sleep. Neil apparently, did not try to defend what he had done in the simulation. "That wouldn't have been Neil," explained Aldrin.
Armstrong's personality was more of the quiet, introspective type. As Collins explained, "They say 'no man is an island'; well, Neil is kind of an island. . . . Sometimes what he is thinking and his inner thoughts were more interesting to him than somebody else's thoughts were to him, so why should he leave his island, go wading out into the shallows to shake hands with somebody, when he's perfectly happy back in his little grass hut or wherever."
The disagreement between Armstrong and Aldrin was the result of how each viewed the purpose of the simulators and their respective goals in a simulation exercise. Armstrong, who had helped develop some of the first flight simulators when he was a NASA test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base before becoming an astronaut, viewed the simulations as an opportunity to explore potential problems, whereas Aldrin viewed the simulations as a game that he should try to win.
"People who had not been involved in simulator development during their career usually just tried to 'win,'" said Armstrong. "They tried to operate perfectly all the time and avoid simulator problems. I did the opposite. I tried actively to encourage simulator problems so I could investigate and learn from them. I am sure that some of the guys were well aware of my approach."
In contrast to Neil, Buzz was more outspoken, he was also highly driven to excel and his drive often alienated him from his fellow astronauts. "I thought we were playing a game," said Aldrin, "and we should make an attempt to do everything we could to win the game, and the sooner we did it when we saw that things were going bad for us, the better off we'd be and the more in keeping with what we'd actually do in a real situation like that."
Aldrin had told Collins that the most important thing was not to crash. "I felt analyzing this and that system and whatever was not playing the game properly as far as the simulator people were concerned. If they threw a failure at us and we were losing control of the LM, would we in real flight actually go on and land? I'm not sure we would. They same way that if something disabled the commander, or disabled the primary guidance, or disabled the landing radar, why, we wouldn't land on the first try, we'd abort and come back. Clearly there was a difference between Neil and I in how we reacted to the simulation. Neil had his reasons for doing what he did."
Did Aldrin suggest during the simulation that they abort? "I don't recall that Buzz asked me to abort -- ever -- I don't remember that," said Armstrong. "What I do remember is that the descent trajectory that we were on during the simulation and the information we had available to us had become seriously degraded, and I thought that it was a great time to test the Mission Control center, 'Okay, guys, let's see what you can do with this.'"
Armstrong continued, "I knew I could abort at any time -- and probably successfully -- but then you lose the mission, the rest of the simulation. This was a chance to test the control center. Buzz took that as a black mark against us. He thought it was a mark against his ability to perform, a mark against both of us and against our crew ability. I didn't look at it that way at all."
According to his biographer, Armstrong wanted to promote technological learning through dialectical experimentation. "If we couldn't come up with a solution or the ground controllers couldn't come up with a solution, that was an indication to me that, for one, I needed to understand that part of the flight trajectory better," said Armstrong. Neil did learn from the "crash," and built a "plot of altitude versus descent rate with bands on it that I hadn't had before, so that I could tell when I was getting into a questionable area. If I had aborted when everyone wanted me to, I probably would not have bothered to make that."
Mission Control also learned from the "crash," as the flight controller and his team reevaluated how they had handled the simulation. "I'm sure they improved their approach to understanding it, too, and knowing when they were getting into a dangerous area," stated Armstrong. "So it did serve a valuable purpose."
Like the lunar module simulator at NASA in the 1960s, prospective missionaries can have the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them. Before entering the MTC, young men and young women can prepare to teach investigators by making lesson plans of the discussions found in Preach My Gospel and teaching mock discussions to members. By making these lesson plans and teaching these mock discussions, they can learn the gospel before they attempt to teach it for real to investigators in the mission field. These simulations should be looked upon as an opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them.
In my job I was recently a trainer, teaching classes of new call center agents systems and processes for helping customers who called in. Role playing was a big part of this training, and everybody had the opportunity to get in front of the class and take a simulated call. I would tell my agents the story of Neil and Buzz in the simulator with the message that they should not worry if they made a mistake.
When I went through training months earlier, I also had the opportunity to role play. At least once I came away feeling that I had "crashed the simulator." Like Armstrong, I viewed it as a learning opportunity.
General Charles Krulak, the commandant of the U.S Marine Corps from 1995 to 1999, argued that "There are lessons to be learned from mistakes. Good leaders create an environment where subordinates are allowed to make mistakes, yet are not put into situations for which they are unprepared or for which the scope of the mistake could be dangerous."
Krulak defined a mistake as a wrong choice being made in an attempt to do something right. "We must be allowed to err in peacetime to ensure we do not err in combat," said Krulak. "We will not be able to survive if we do otherwise."
A young lieutenant named Chester Nimitz was allowed to err in 1906 when he ran his destroyer aground in the Philippines. Normally, running your ship aground is a career killer in the U.S. Navy. But the officers who judged him must of seen something in Nimitz, for they let him off with a mild reprimand. This was fortunate not just for Nimitz, who would rise to become Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet during World War II, but also for the nation he served.
Often in our personal and professional lives, we encounter what some have termed a "no-mistake mentality." Sometimes we choose to join in. As one Marine officer admitted, "We are all quick to jump on the 'people must be allowed to make mistakes' bandwagon, but too often we quietly caveat this with the thought, 'As long as they're not my people.'"
Admiral Nimitz disagreed, and often gave subordinates second chances. "Rather than making heads roll," said John H. Dalton, Navy Secretary from 1993 to 1998, "He made them think."
Since none of us are perfect, we will all make mistakes. "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God," wrote Paul. Let us, then, seek to have patience and understanding when others make mistakes. We would hope others would do the same for us.
Sources:
Hansen, J. R. (2005). First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Potter, E. B. (1976). Nimitz. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press.
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