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| Review: A testament to courage, the minds that made the U.S. space programFailure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond (Simon & Schuster)
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His memoir, "Failure Is Not an Option," chronicles the small steps and giant leaps that led to human exploration of the moon. It's an eyewitness account of the first feeble attempts to put an American in space (including what came to be known as "the four-inch flight," the November 1960 launch of the first Redstone rocket for Project Mercury) and of the crowning achievements that were the landings on the lunar surface.
"Failure Is Not an Option" covers a lot of territory -- figuratively and literally. Project Mercury, which put the first Americans in space, operated out of a fairly haphazard collection of facilities on Cape Canaveral in Florida.
"In 1960," Kranz writes, "the Cape looked like an oil field, with towering structures, dirt, and asphalt roads newly carved out of the palmetto scrub. The alligators were reluctantly surrendering to the onslaught of newly arrived civilization. If you didn't have a good sense of direction, you were in trouble."
Kranz matured along with NASA. Mentored by Project Mercury's legendary flight director Chris Craft, he worked his way up to the "big chair." By Project Gemini, he was one of three flight directors at the helm of ground control during orbital missions. By Project Apollo, he was the lead flight director for odd-numbered missions -- including Apollo XI, the first moon landing.
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He became a familiar and easily recognized figure at Mission Control. His crew cut hair, the steely concentration of his gaze, and his trademark white vest set him apart from the crowd of controllers.
The vest was his wife's idea. She made a new one for each mission. Each flight director assembled his own team of controllers, who worked in shifts. Since Kranz headed up the white team (the others, initially, were red and blue), his wife made white vests to promote solidarity among his team.
"Failure Is Not an Option" may be about space exploration, but it is firmly rooted in terra firma. Kranz tells of the men (and the few women) who stayed on Earth. The astronauts who braved the void are important figures, but minor characters in his story.
Kranz says he didn't really have much personal contact with the crews of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. The astronauts flew in their own orbit, as it were, while the flight controllers pretty much kept to themselves. The two groups spent a lot of time working together -- in the endless simulations that prepared them for each mission and during the space flights -- but apparently didn't socialize much.
Kranz recounts each mission in which he participated. Every one had its moments of tension, its minor catastrophes. He played a small part in the major tragedy of the Apollo I fire.
And, of course, he was at the heart of the desperate effort to save the crew of Apollo XIII. His account captures the atmosphere of anxiety that pervaded the flight control team, and their unwavering determination to bring the astronauts home alive. It is a testament to courage.
His version of the Apollo XIII story does not, however, include the words "Failure is not an option." Kranz makes it clear that the line delivered with such fierce intensity by actor Ed Harris in the movie "Apollo 13" didn't need to be spoken during the actual event.
"Failure is not an option" wasn't a slogan. It was the creed by which Kranz and his team of flight controllers lived every time they walked into Mission Control.
Kranz offers an important record of the history of space flight. Moreover, he tells an absorbing story of the human drama that made space flight possible.
"Failure Is Not an Option" is, in some ways, "inside baseball" for space buffs. It's full of jargon and hardware. But it's also filled with the acts of ingenuity and grace under pressure that helped release humanity from its earthly bonds and propel it toward a new frontier.
Apollo 11 experiment still returning results
July 21, 1999
Images recall Apollo's voyage of discovery
July 20, 1999
One giant leap: Apollo 11 at 30
July 1999
Apollo 8 astronauts look back 30 years after historic flight
December 20, 1998
Apollo special gets White House screening
March 6, 1998
The last men on the moon
December 7, 1997
30 years later, Apollo 1 astronaut gains Hall of Fame status
May 22, 1997
Moon shot attraction aimed at history, not fantasy
January 13, 1997
Tom Hanks steers HBO's $50 million moon mission April 17, 1997
Apollo 13: It's a sky-high success!
June 12, 1995
NASA Apollo Mission Apollo-13
Apollo 13
Simon & Schuster
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