Failure Is Not an Option

Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond

By: Gene Kranz

Narrated by: Danny Campbell

Length: 18 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

Gene Kranz was present at the creation of America's manned space program and was a key player in it for three decades. As a flight director in NASA's Mission Control, Kranz witnessed firsthand the making of history. He participated in the space program from the early days of the Mercury program to the last Apollo mission, and beyond. He endured the disastrous first years when rockets blew up and the United States seemed to fall further behind the Soviet Union in the space race. He helped to launch Alan Shepard and John Glenn, then assumed the flight director's role in the Gemini program, which he guided to fruition. With his teammates, he accepted the challenge to carry out President John F. Kennedy's commitment to land a man on the moon before the end of the 1960s.

Kranz was flight director for both Apollo 11, the mission in which Neil Armstrong fulfilled President Kennedy's pledge, and Apollo 13. He headed the Tiger Team that had to figure out how to bring the three Apollo 13 astronauts safely back to Earth. (In the film Apollo 13, Kranz was played by the actor Ed Harris, who earned an Academy Award nomination for his performance.)

In Failure Is Not an Option, Gene Kranz recounts these thrilling historic events and offers new information about the famous flights. What appeared as nearly flawless missions to the moon were, in fact, a series of hair-raising near misses. When the space technology failed, as it sometimes did, the controllers' only recourse was to rely on their skills and those of their teammates. Kranz takes us inside Mission Control and introduces us to some of the whiz kids - still in their twenties, only a few years out of college - who had to figure it all out as they went along, creating a great and daring enterprise. He reveals behind-the-scenes details to demonstrate the leadership, discipline, trust, and teamwork that made the space program a success.

©2009 Gene Kranz (P)2011 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Plenty of books (and several films) have already tried to depict the space program's excitement; few of their creators had the first-person experience or the attention to detail Krantz has, whose role as flight control "White" his readers will admire or even wish to emulate." ( Publishers Weekly)

Simply awesome. Teared up a few different times.

easily recommended. 10/10 on everything, but I do wish gene himself had done the audiobook. still awesome

The Space Race from the Ultimate Geek's View

This is an awesome book for the geek in all of us! My husband and I have degrees in engineering so we loved listening to it! It is full of technical detail and stories about the hijinks of the controllers. We especially loved the story of the controller that could not get a parking spot and parked his car on the steps. He was disciplined and lost his parking pass, so he brought his horse trailer to a nearby parking lot and rode his horse to the bike rack. The horse stayed there during his shift! Our four kids, ages 20 to 7 captive in the van traveling from Wyoming to Michigan listened to the story, they enjoyed the book too!

I loved it and listened to it twice!

I loved the book, and recommend it to anyone that is interested in the history of nasa and early space flight.
The only con for me was the periodic mentioning of his role in the sky lab & shuttle program, yet he never went over what his role was in the programs. I am assuming he felt that an administrator roll in the programs wasn't interesting enough to include into the book.
All in all, this is my favorite book so far that I have downloaded on audible.

Great Read

This book has inside stories that I have not heard before about the various space programs from the very beginning up to the end of the Apollo missions. Gene has a great way with words, which makes it easy to imagine what it must have been like going through all of the stages of the programs.

Very Inspirational

Gene Kranz is an amazing person and great author. His detail and re accounts of the events are unbelievable.

Easily the best book I've ever read.

I was left hanging in his every word and I almost hated to get out of my car because the story is that good. This book defines a generation and defines what is lacking from mine. They don't make guys like this anymore.

Good read.

Listened to it on a 13 hour car drive for vacation. Very interesting if you liked the space program. Great behind the scenes of Mercury and Gemini programs.

All that you ever wanted to know of the space race

Would you listen to Failure Is Not an Option again? Why?

I have listened to it again several times. There's so much detail there that I learn something new every time I listen to it.

What did you like best about this story?

I love how real Kranz keeps it. He's not trying to pretty it up to make himself - or anyone else - look good for the sake of posterity. He discusses their failures as honestly as their successes.

Which character – as performed by Danny Campbell – was your favorite?

Not really applicable here. Danny Campbell did a good job all-around, including correctly and consistently pronouncing the multitudinous NASA acronyms. Kranz' writing is very much fact-based with little emotion to it: The emotion comes through the in-depth understanding of events that he gives readers using those facts and some references to his own feelings. Campbell is able to reflect this without lapsing into a monotone. I have no complaints.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Kranz' description of the Fire, and his discussion of his disappointment in the fact that we've gone from going to the Moon to being stuck in LEO. (And now we can't even get there without outside help!) These both aroused strong feelings as well as stayed with me long after I'd finished his book.

Any additional comments?

If you just want to know the basic facts of how we went from the infamous 4" flight to the Moon in under a decade, you can go check Wikipedia. If you want to know what it was really like to be there, to make the life and death decisions, to endure the sacrifices, to feel the regret and guilt, the pride and joy, everything that went into being intimately involved in the Space Race, you need to read this book. (...and "Flight" by Chris Kraft).

Polishing NASA's Tarnished Image

I want to believe in NASA's future... but I don't. Nice account of the glory days though.

Really interesting insight into early NASA

The death of President Kennedy was the worst thing that happened to the space program. Well written, well performed, a great sequence of fascinating and true stories.