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

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.

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.

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.