Apollo 13 and improvisation under constraint

In April 1970, the Apollo 13 mission to the moon suffered a catastrophic failure when an oxygen tank exploded two hundred thousand miles from Earth. The three astronauts were suddenly in a crippled spacecraft, running out of power, water, and breathable air. One problem became urgent: carbon dioxide was building up to lethal levels, and the filters that would remove it were the wrong shape for the part of the ship the crew had retreated to. The right filters existed, but they physically would not fit. On the ground, engineers were handed a box of the exact items the astronauts had available on board, nothing more, and told to make the wrong filter fit the wrong socket using only those objects. They built a solution out of plastic bags, cardboard, tape, and a sock, radioed up the instructions, and the astronauts assembled it. All three came home alive.

Real performance under pressure is improvisation with whatever is actually at hand, not the smooth execution of a rehearsed plan. The engineers who saved Apollo 13 could not use the right tool, so they invented one from scraps, under a deadline measured in hours, with lives at stake. This is worth remembering when you judge people, because interviews and résumés reward the polished, prepared version of someone, while the moments that actually matter are usually the unscripted ones where the plan has failed and something must be built from what remains. The person you want is often the one who improvises well when the right tool is missing, and that is exactly what a rehearsed interview cannot show you.

Failure Is Not an Option

Gene Kranz, 2000

From the flight director, on building teams that improvise their way through disaster.