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Failure Is Not An Option
The Scenario
Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship "United States of America." Their 10-year mission: to explore strange new satellites; to seek out new knowledge and new challenges; to boldly go where no human has gone before.
Ok, ok, so it's a little trite. Nevertheless, this is the story of the men (and women) who lived John Kennedy's dream of space exploration and conquered the moon. Gene Kranz, for those who didn't see Apollo 13, was one of NASA's main flight controllers. His story extends well before that fateful mission, of course, to the very beginning of the space program. Gene takes us from his days of joining the program through the early Mercury and Gemini missions and on to the moon landing and the end of the Apollo program. Along the way a fascinating story emerges of a team closely united in a common purpose, such as has rarely been seen. That statement might seen overly melodramatic, but the race to the moon, in front of the entire world, remains unique in human history. The details we learn along the way give an amazing amount of insight into the inner workings of the space program: many missions came closer to disaster than I had realized; the loss of Apollo 1 and NASA's subsequent recovery serve as an interesting counterpoint to the post-Challenger era; the aimlessness of NASA after the moon landings that has continued to this day. Krantz' story is a fascinating and inspiring account of a true team that worked tirelessly to reach the unreachable.
What's Good?I think I've covered that. :-) Gene has a unique perspective and position from which to tell this story, and he does an excellent job. When he didn't remember or witness an event, he went back to his former colleagues at NASA to fill in the details. The storytelling is coherent and understandable. This isn't an engineering book, so there isn't a lot of technical gibberish thrown in. This is, above all, a book about people, and about an organizational effort that any software project would do well to emulate.
What's Bad?Gene isn't a professional author, and it shows through in places. The cuts and flashbacks are not always in the best places, and sometimes distract the reader from the overall story. The main problem, however, is that the cast of characters is enormous and ever-shifting. A character listing would have been a nice addition, as I had trouble keeping everyone (and their nicknames) straight at times. Neither of these problems was major, though.
I would like to see Gene's perspective on the post-Apollo era. He does editorialize on this at the end, but I would love to see how he handled the post-Challenger time from his management position, and what he tried to do to jump-start NASA. It would be another excellent read.
So What's In It For Me?It's a cool story, dangit! What more do you want? :-)
Table of Contents- The Four-Inch Flight
- "Liftoff; the Clock is Running
- "God Speed, John Glenn"
- The Brotherhood
- The Making of a Rocket Man
- Gemini -- The Twins
- White Flight
- The Spirit of 76
- The Angry Alligator
- A Fire on the Pad
- Out of the Ashes
- The X Mission
- The Christmas Story
- 1969 -- The Year of Apollo
- SimSup Wins the Final Round
- We Copy You Down, Eagle
- "What the Hell Was That?"
- The Age of Aquarius
- Coming Home
- Shepard's Return
- What Do You Do After the Moon?
- The Last Liftoff
- Epilogue
- Where They Are
- Acknowledgments
- Appendix: Foundations of Mission Control
- Glossary of Terms
- Index
Buy this book at Fatbrain.
www.genekranz.com is a source of errata and more technical details about the book. I can't wait to read it.
To play golf?
It was a joke, see, played by a hero who had the cojones to sit on a (gasp) Redstone, and who later saddled his butt onto an atom-bomb sized Saturn V. I'm sorry you're offended by his claim of a little personal privilege; a lot of people didn't get it.
Plant a flag?
Damn straight, plant a flag.
Collect rocks? Wow. What a contribution to the human race.
It was a monumental achievement, and it unified the race for a short time. EVERYBODY watched and held their breath. My guess is that you weren't born yet, right? That's too bad -- there has been no similar moment on Earth since then.
(And I wouldn't be so cavalier about discounting the rocks' scientific value if I were you, unless of course you have some credentials in geophysics -- let us know.)
The race to the moon was a political race.
Agreed. But at least for those of us who lived in Florida at the time, the Soviet space effort was perceived as a real threat. The "Cuban missile crisis" was a local event, and in school we would tell our pals that we'd see them tomorrow -- if nothing happened. Don't be so quick to dismiss the military interest in space... the Soviets were ahead, and the US was behind, and the threat was tangible.
[The ISS shows] that we are capable of organizing ourselves as a race to achieve things
Sure - well beyond budget, schedule shot to hell, no controlling authority and no assurance that the partners will uphold their obligations. Lofty sentiments toward "the race" notwithstanding, this is a lousy way to run a business.
IMO one of the tragedies of the last 25 years in space has been the rapprochement arranged between the so-called superpowers. There is no competition anymore, and the heat is off. The Russkis have agreed not to beat the Angliskis to Mars -- hence NOBODY is going.
The PRC is going to launch one day pretty soon. I do love competition.
First of all, the one and foremost reason is of course the ever present one, which drives humanity all the time, Because it's there.
And on a more serious note, mankind should strive it's hardest to reach for the stars, because the sun won't always be here, and then we're kinda screwed if we're still here. It pays to plan ahead.
Well, in the best "my pedantry's better than your pedantry" mode, surely you mean Kg, not KG :-)
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Right. I don't think NASA is aimless at all. In fact, I think they have their sights set much, much higher than ever before: Mars. It may seem like Nasa is suffering from a lack of direction, but I think that is because we don't have a charismatic young president adamently supporting a manned Martian mission as Kennedy did for the moon. No one is really rallying the troops, but when we finally do reach Mars, it will be just huge; as corny as this sounds it will probably be the single most unifying event for mankind in recorded history, assuming there is no political stigma surrounding it. Mars will be the first and almost certainly only planet we will send man to for the next two to three hundred years. It will be a really big, big deal when it happens. They're not aimless, just patient.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
... for the review. I bought a copy of this book a few weeks ago to read on my vacation. I'm thinking I made a good choice. Check out G.K.'s web site for excerpts, etc. (Sorry I cannot lay my hands on the URL just now.)
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CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
I agree that it was a mostly political race to go to the moon, but it was just as much a technological race too. They had to research & invent everything along the way, which is probably the greatest single, focused engineering feat ever.
The ISS is just as much of a political race. It's been scaled down dramatically, $billions over-budget, almost 10 years behind schedule, and most experiments (not all) that'll be performed on it could be performed just as easy, and less expensive, on the shuttle or a satelite. The only reason we're still involving Russia is to infuse needed cash into their defense industry so they don't start selling nukes instead. The technology involved in the ISS is mostly from the 80's, far from cutting edge.
Devil Ducky wrote: /.) about a time schedule for the manned mission being soon after the space station nears completion.
You seem to have forgotten the other major project that NASA has been working on: The Mars landings. All of these probes (that keep crashing) are being sent there to explore for a hopeful manned mission. I read somewhere (I think on
Take a deep breath.
There is no timetable. There is no realistic plan for a manned mission. There is, at this writing, no hope of Congress authorizing any funds for one.
The people at NASA would obviously love to be planning one, and they stretch every thin dime they're given in order to sneak in useful research in that direction. But the reality is that Congress has been led to believe that a Mars mission would cost between one and five hundred billion dollars, per proposals presented during the Bush administration, and they're all looking at the next election thinking they'd be lynched for approving it.
The Mars Direct proposals take a different approach, ditching the orbital launching platform, ditching the enormous crew, ditching the orbiter+lander approach that mimics Apollo, forgetting about a three-year journey with six weeks on surface, and achieving all its necessary redundancy in other ways. The budget is a far more realistic FORTY billion, and places skilled human scientists on the Martian surface for an entire year.
But it isn't NASA's plan, and while they've come close (Mars Semi-Direct), they are for all practical purposes enjoined by Congress from spending any taxpayer dollars on any planning for a Mars mission.
They even tried to get authorization for a TransHab module for ISS that would serve as a proving ground for Mars vehicle and habitat technology, but that was turned down.
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lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
Could it be possible to get an interview with this person? I for one would love to ask him a few (ok, tons) of questions.
This topic is actually covered in the book "Stages to Saturn", by Roger E. Bilstein. As you might guess, it's biased heavily towards development of the Saturn hardware, but it does cover management structure in a great deal of structure.
Some of this element - with more of a leaning towards the "whys" rather than the "whats" - is covered in the excellent "Chariots for Apollo" by Charles R. Pellegrino, Joshua Stoff. This really is development of the Lunar Module (LM) rather than NASA-as-a-whole, but Grumman's story (the developer of the LM), together with the trials and tribulations of dealing with NASA and the other contractors, is told excellently.
Amazon have "Stages to Saturn" listed Here and "Chariots for Apollo" listed Here
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I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
By lucky coincidence I finished reading this book last week. I'm having my annual isn't-Apollo-fascinating binge[*].
I mostly agree with the review as-written, certainly with regards to the..um...slickness of the writing. Don't get me wrong - it's a perfectly readable book, however it's not what I'd call professional. Actually, that's a benefit - Gene's personality literally shines through his writing.
In fact, this book could not be written by any other person; no ghost-writer could be this convincing. Gene's attitude, beliefs, values and idiosyncracies are all there in their glory. Just finding out he pumped himself up for a mission by mentally playing back military marches on his way to work was worth the price of admission alone.
This book is almost like reading Gene's confession of his pride for his team and America's accomplishments in the '60s, in space. And that's really my only remark. As a non-USian, non-religious, not-particularly-patriotic soul, it's hard to empathise with some of Gene's values. Doesn't detract from the reading, mind you, but I just don't necessarily "get" Gene's motivations.
As a historical document, however, then when people ask you about the stuff that wasn't on TV during Apollo - i.e. things done by any of the 400,000 people who didn't end up in the pointy end of a 6-million pound Aluminum tube - then point 'em at this book. You might not learn much technically, but the reasons it happened, and how it made those people feel, is all there.
[*] = I've just read the Apollo 11 Mission Reports parts 1 & 2 from, Apogee Books - highly recommended if you like lots of technical detail since they're the pre/post mission reports and crew debriefs). Just have Apollo 13 mission report to read next, after I finish "Darwin's Radio"
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I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
_empty_
I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds
I remember seeing Gene Kranz interviewed a few years ago on what it was like when the Apollo 13 crew was finally on that aircraft carrier. He began to mist up, and all he could choke out was that "it was really neat."
It's hard to imagine people these days would feel so reticient about burdening other people with their feelings, good or bad. It's one of the qualities of that generation that I like.
Not that it couldn't be done today, but I think that the generation that fought WWII was uniquely suited to produce men and women to succeed in worst case scenarios. I sometimes think of them as the scared shitless generation. They were born into the worst economic dislocation in history. We're talking armies of able bodied men willing and eager to do anything to feed their families not being able to get any kind of work, and being totally at the mercy of their employers when they did. Then they faced the nightmare prospect of several technologically advanced industrial nations hijacked by gangs of ruthless and conquest minded butchers. Then there were endless rounds of cold war with nuclear stakes to be played.
"Failure is not an option" was never said, IIRC, by Gene Krantz, but it could have been a catch phrase for the entire generation. A long the way they made quite a few collosal screw ups (Vietnam, environmental disasters, support for various nasty dictators), but by in large they left a much brighter, freer world than they got.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
To play golf? Plant a flag? Collect rocks? Wow. What a contribution to the human race.
The race to the moon was a political race. The US government believed that the USSR had scared the crap out of it's citizens by being first into space. They were right. They needed to be able to prove to their own citizens that they could beat those ruskies, and they did. It served it's purpose.
So what are we doing now? The International Space Station. Not only will this serve as an excellent scientific resource and a launching site for other space ventures, it also shows us that we are capable of organizing ourselves as a race to achieve things that are not merely "impossible", but rather are significantly useful.
I have a lot of respect for the people that took the moon shot. I have just as much respect for the scientists and engineers working so hard right now to be useful, without the great motivator of political fear backing them.
Earth - been there done that. Time for something new.
Sorry my friend, but there is no 'something new', we have no habitable planets we're going to be able to get to, and we're fucking the one we have up the ass with a chainsaw. Gently. :)
Graphic metaphors aside, please consider the option that we should be concentrating on better stewardship of the planet we have, rather than looking into space for salvation. As long as we have a society that guzzles energy in order that we should have WWF Raw Monday nights and plastic toys in your Happy Meal, we're not making any sort of progress.
All this is IMO. But that goes w/o saying.
Wah!
genekranz.com including your choice of 2 randomly chosen chapter from the book.
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Compare this to the modern management structure: basically, do whatever we tell you. It doesn't matter if you should be doing what we hired you for, we want you to do this now. I have this happen to me all the time. I was hired to do a job with a description. However, it quickly became aparent to me that the "other duties as assigned" portion of the job description was much more important than the job I was hired for.
I used to think it was just the management of the company I work for, but after discussing this with some friends, it became clear that this happens everywhere.
The problem with this management style is that it promotes sloppy work. If I thought the job was going to be one thing (that I should like to do -why else would have I applied?), but it becomes something else (that I may not even have training to do), how good am I going to be?
I have also noticed the inverse is true: I work with people who are not doing what they are paid to do, only because they like that job more than their primary duties.
Of couse, there was also a very clear objective and process for meeting that objective.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
True, but still not good enough. We're already near the maximum possible efficiency and it's just not enough.
If reusable rockets can be built, the actual cost per passenger is little more than the cost of a Concorde ticket, assuming designs like the Roton can be made to work, space travel becomes a heck of a lot more airline like.
Even the head of Rotary Rocket isn't that optimistic on costs. I've met him. And Rotary Rocket has other problems. The current Rotary Rocket vehicle is suborbital only; they can't quite make it to orbit because the weight budget is so tight. The original rotary-nozzle engine was supposed to take them to orbit, but they couldn't afford the development, and they're now using an off-the-shelf engine with a turbopump. This broke their weight budget. The current vehicle is now viewed as a proof-of-concept vehicle to justify another round of funding.
But that isn't why they are so expensive- its simpler than that, its because so few rockets are made. Costs for low numbers - its often cheaper to build one than 20; but even cheaper to build 1000.
Rockets have been built in 1000+ quantities. Some of the ICBM boosters were produced in thousands. They get cheaper, but they're still an expensive way to move a few hundred pounds to orbit. The Saturn V still holds the record on lowest cost per pound in orbit. (Yes, Shuttle costs are higher, even amortizing the vehicle over 100 launches.) The "cheap, dumb booster" idea has been floated, but launch success rates now hover around 80%, which is not very good. A cheaper booster with an even lower success rate would not be a win as a satellite launcher.
You mention nuclear. ... And the devastation if it crashes would be Chernobyl like.
Yeah. But I wish the US had launched an Orion in the 1960s, back when the US was still doing atmospheric nuclear tests, just so we knew it was possible. Obviously you launch from somewhere very far from anybody. It's not totally clean or safe, but back then the risk would have been considered acceptable.
I give it 30 years and then we'll see thousands of people living in space.
It's 30 years since Apollo, and we have maybe 2 to 8 people in space at any one time. I expect than in 30 years, there will be about as many people living in space as now live in Antarctica.
If space travel ever gets big, it won't be by chemical propulsion.
Thirty years later, there hasn't been much progress. Chemical rockets are still too weak, nuclear propulsion doesn't get much attention, and none of the other propulsion concepts are even close to working. That's where we are today - stuck.
Cernan's book is written from the perscpective of the astronaut (obviously) battling the NASA brass, the difficult training and the various tribulations (he covers all the lows and highs) of being one of the most high profile people in America in the 60s and 70s.
I think it'd be an interesting contrast to "Failure..." because of the diversity of perspective - kinda like reading the two competing books on Mitnick's time on the lam. Kranz's perspective likely differs dramatically from that of fighter pilot Cernan.
This may be the ultimate in nerdy things to admit, but I don't read books that much. My father actually called me from a book signing somewhere to ask me if I wanted a copy of Cernan's book. After I got by the "Who the hell is Gene Cernan?" part (he was on Apollo 10 and Apollo 17 - the last trip to the Moon), I said sure, thinking I'd stuff it on a shelf somewhere. After reading the opening chapters thinking "I'll never finish this," I did plow right through it.
Anyway, to stay on topic, it would be a good contrast to this book. (And, no I don't work for Cernan or any publishing companies.)
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"This is the nineties. You don't just go around punching people. You have to say something cool first."
I'm not insinuating that we stop exploring space, but that we should take our failures in stride.
"Assume the worst about people, and you'll generally be correct"
Uh, NASA has the complete specs to the Saturn V booster plus all the engineering data plus all the test data and most of the engineers who worked on it are still living. I'm not quite sure where the myth started that we lost the design plans, but it is false.