Failure Is Not An Option

In his copious free time, Jason Bennett must do other things, but for now he's managed to pound out yet another book review, this time of Gene Kranz' Failure Is Not An Option, about as straight-from-the-horse's-mouth as a book about NASA can be. Kranz is an interesting storyteller, and he certainly doesn't lack for material -- he helped send people to the moon!

Failure Is Not An Option author Gene Kranz pages 415 publisher Simon & Schuster rating 9 reviewer Jason Bennett ISBN 0-7432-0079-9 summary The story of the early days of NASA from its most famous flight director.

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

1. The Four-Inch Flight
2. "Liftoff; the Clock is Running
3. "God Speed, John Glenn"
4. The Brotherhood
5. The Making of a Rocket Man
6. Gemini -- The Twins
7. White Flight
8. The Spirit of 76
9. The Angry Alligator
10. A Fire on the Pad
11. Out of the Ashes
12. The X Mission
13. The Christmas Story
14. 1969 -- The Year of Apollo
15. SimSup Wins the Final Round
16. We Copy You Down, Eagle
17. "What the Hell Was That?"
18. The Age of Aquarius
19. Coming Home
20. Shepard's Return
21. What Do You Do After the Moon?
22. The Last Liftoff

• Epilogue
• Where They Are
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix: Foundations of Mission Control
• Glossary of Terms
• Index

Buy this book at Fatbrain.

Comments

Re:NASA's Aimlessness

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Slashdot Interview?

[arkham6]

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.

Mostly concurr with the review, few remarks

[henley]

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"

The scared shitless generation

[hey!]

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.

NASA's Aimlessness

[Gothland]

I think that saying NASA is aimless at this point is short-sighted. Sure, we're not doing anything as dramatic as going to the moon, but why did we go to the moon in the first place?

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.

Re:NASA's Aimlessness

[Devil Ducky]

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 /.) about a time schedule for the manned mission being soon after the space station nears completion.


Devil Ducky

More info at:

[Money__]

genekranz.com including your choice of 2 randomly chosen chapter from the book.

___

The real story: management structure

[grumling]

It is unfortunate that more isn't said about how NASA of the 60's was structured. True it was based on military chain of command (as was most management structure of the day), but the idea that everyone involved knew exactly what their duty was, and it was rare that you strayed from your role. This was very clearly shown in Apollo 13 (the movie), and also in the HBO series _From_Earth_to_the_Moon_. Everyone involved in the Apollo missions, from the vendors to the astronauts to the guy cleaning the floors, knew exactly what they should be doing, and didn't have changes in their roles just because it suited management to have something done.

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.

Space travel isn't feasible

[Animats]

Apollo put a big fraction of the smart technical people in the US to work on a fundamentally dead-end idea: big chemically-fueled rockets. Because the specific impulse of the best possible chemical fuels is just barely enough to useful payloads into orbit, this led to huge rockets with tiny payloads, weight-reduced to the point that they were expensive to build, fragile to use, and could only be used once. With great difficulty, a few trips to the Moon were made, and then reality set in.

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.