Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond

By Gene Kranz

• Gene Kranz was a flight director for most of the U.S. manned space program, and was on duty for some of the most critical events - including the first moon landing, and, of course the Apollo 13 accident.
  
  In "Failure Is Not an Option," Kranz tells the story of Mission Control from the begining (he wrote some of the intial procedures manuals) through the Space Shuttle program. He shows how the ground controllers developed into a team, not only with each other, but with the astronauts on board the spacecraft.
  
  Kranz may not be the most polished writer, but this is a first-person account from someone who helped make history. One of the things I really liked about the book is that Kranz not only took detailed notes during the missions (that was his first flight assignment), but he held on to them and used them to provide a more detailed account than I have seen before of the key missions from the perspective of Mission Control.
  
  He doesn't pull punches, and he's not afraid to admit mistakes, and this gives this book an air of honesty that you don't always find in an autobiography.
  

• Gene Kranz provides the reader with a remarkably vivid account of what it is like to be behind the scenes of Mission Control.
  
  From the initial procedures he wrote for the Mercury program, to the clipped voices of controllers working a spacecraft contingency to the sometimes abandoned way they let off steam off-console, Mr. Kranz brings you an accurate and very readable account of the MCC.
  
  From my own experiences of 20 years in the MCC, this book provides a very personal glimpse in how we continue to work. For the reader who remembers growing up with the highs and lows of the space race, this book will rekindle all the emotions of the time and fill in many of the blanks that can only come from an insider such as Mr. Kranz.
  
  "Failure Is Not An Option" should be required reading for any one currently working at the MCC, and for anyone wanting to learn more about what it took to put a man on the moon.