Failure is not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond
by Gene Kranz

List Price: $16.00
Our Price: $2.87
You Save: $13.13 (82%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.46 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions

Book Summary Information

Book Reviews of Failure is not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond

Book Review: Be Tough and Competent!
Summary: 5 Stars

Summary of Failure is not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond

Kranz was part of the mission control team that, in January 1961, launched a chimpanzee into space and successfully retrieved him, and made Alan Shepard the first American in space in May 1961. Just two months later they launched Gus Grissom for a space orbit, John Glenn orbited Earth three times in February 1962, and in May of 1963 Gordon Cooper completed the final Project Mercury launch with 22 Earth orbits. And through them all, and the many Apollo missions that followed, Gene Kranz was one of the integral inside men--one of those who bore the responsibility for the Apollo 1 tragedy, and the leader of the "tiger team" that saved the Apollo 13 astronauts.

Moviegoers know Gene Kranz through Ed Harris's Oscar-nominated portrayal of him in Apollo 13, but Kranz provides a more detailed insider's perspective in his book Failure Is Not an Option. You see NASA through his eyes, from its primitive days when he first joined up, through the 1993 shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, his last mission control project. His memoir, however, is not high literature. Kranz has many accomplishments and honors to his credit, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, but this is his first book, and he's not a polished author. There are, perhaps, more behind-the-scenes details and more paragraphs devoted to what Cape Canaveral looked like than the general public demands. If, however, you have a long-standing fascination with aeronautics, if you watched Apollo 13 and wanted more, Failure Is Not an Option will fill the bill. --Stephanie Gold

Failure Is Not an Option is a thrilling insider's account of Mission Control from the early years of trying to catch the Russians to the end of the manned space program. It is filled with behind-the-scenes stories, including the painful self-examination that took place following the Apollo 1 disaster and the daring decision to schedule an Apollo flight to the moon before NASA had ever launched a manned rocket beyond earth orbit. Kranz's stories about the dedication and resourcefulness of the astronaut corps and Mission Control teams show how an organization dominated by young people only in their twenties could succeed in one of the boldest missions in human history, placing a man on the moon in less than a decade.

United States Books

• History > Americas
• Science > Astronomy > Aeronautics & Astronautics
• Experiments, Instruments & Measurement > Experiments & Projects
• History & Philosophy > History of Science
• Professional & Technical > Engineering
• History: Americas: United States: General
• Professional & Technical: Engineering: General
• Science: General
• Engineering