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ShareIn 1957, the Russians launched Sputnik and the ensuing space race.
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Three years later, Gene Kranz left his aircraft testing job to join NASA and champion the American cause.
What he found was an embryonic department run by whiz kids (such as himself), sharp engineers and technicians who had to create the Mercury mission rules and procedure from the ground up.
As he says, "Since there were no books written on the actual methodology of space flight, we had to write them as we went along." Kranz was part of the mission control team that, in January 1961, launched a chimpanzee into space and successfully retrieved him, and made Alan Shepard the first American in space in May 1961.
Just two months later they launched Gus Grissom for a space orbit, John Glenn orbited Earth three times in February 1962, and in May of 1963 Gordon Cooper completed the final Project Mercury launch with 22 Earth orbits.
And through them all, and the many Apollo missions that followed, Gene Kranz was one of the integral inside men--one of those who bore the responsibility for the Apollo 1 tragedy, and the leader of the "tiger team" that saved the Apollo 13 astronauts.
Moviegoers know Gene Kranz through Ed Harris's Oscar-nominated portrayal of him in Apollo 13, but Kranz provides a more detailed insider's perspective in his book Failure Is Not an Option.
For more information about the title Failure is not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond, read the full description at Amazon.com, or see the following related books:
The First Men on the Moon: The Story of Apollo 11 (Springer Praxis Books / Space Exploration) — On 12 April 1961 Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth. One month later, President John F. Kennedy challenged the American nation to ... > read more
We Have Capture: Tom Stafford and the Space Race — How Apollo commander Stafford defused the Cold War in space by leading the way to Soviet/US cooperation. What an amazing career—Tom Stafford ... > read more
"Live from Cape Canaveral": Covering the Space Race, from Sputnik to Today — Some fifty years ago, while a cub reporter, Jay Barbree caught space fever the night that Sputnik passed over Georgia. He moved to the then-sleepy ... > read more
Space Systems Failures: Disasters and Rescues of Satellites, Rockets and Space Probes — In the 1960s and 1970s deep space missions were dispatched in pairs in case one was lost in launch or failed during its journey. Following the ... > read moreRecommend this page on Facebook, Twitter,
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