Summary of Gene Kranz's Failure Is Not an Option

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 The human factor is what saves the crew of Apollo 13. It is what saves the crew of Apollo 13 when all the glittering technology seems useless.

#2 I was excited to be at the Cape Canaveral launch site, as I had been assigned to NASA to help with the American space program. I was shocked to see that the base looked like any other military base.

#3 I had never driven that fast on a military base in my life. I was thinking I had hitchhiked with a madman, or at least someone who had no concern about being pulled over by the Air Police for speeding and breaking every regulation in the book.

#4 The first orbiting satellite, Sputnik, was a shock to American pride. The reverberations of that little sphere were far-reaching. It sparked a massive federal education funding program, and the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Mar 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669377863

IRB Media

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Insights on Gene Kranz's Failure Is Not an Option

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 17

Insights from Chapter 18

Insights from Chapter 19

Insights from Chapter 20

Insights from Chapter 21

Insights from Chapter 22

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The human factor is what saves the crew of Apollo 13. It is what saves the crew of Apollo 13 when all the glittering technology seems useless.

#2

I was excited to be at the Cape Canaveral launch site, as I had been assigned to NASA to help with the American space program. I was shocked to see that the base looked like any other military base.

#3

I had never driven that fast on a military base in my life. I was thinking I had hitchhiked with a madman, or at least someone who had no concern about being pulled over by the Air Police for speeding and breaking every regulation in the book.

#4

The first orbiting satellite, Sputnik, was a shock to American pride. The reverberations of that little sphere were far-reaching. It sparked a massive federal education funding program, and the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

#5

I was given the task of writing the manual for Mercury Control, which was the team that was in charge of the launch operations at the Cape. I was given this assignment mainly because I was available.

#6

I was assigned to Mercury Control, the team that was in charge of the launch countdown for the first American into space. It was a scary thought, but not for anyone who had been around test pilots.

#7

The first American rockets were barely adequate, and the communication network was run out of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Cape facility that would become the Kennedy Space Center was beyond our wildest dreams in 1960.

#8

I had left behind a world where airplanes were flying at roughly five miles a minute. In this new, virtually uncharted world, we would be moving at five miles per second. During a mission countdown, or even a flight test, so many things would be happening so fast that you didn’t have any time for second thoughts or arguments.

#9

The launch process was extremely stressful, but I was starting to feel like I was getting the hang of it. The few days of hands-on familiarity with MCC systems had helped me understand the MCC team.

#10

I felt like I was finally feeling at home at the Mercury control room, with its three rows of pedestal-style consoles. The only instruments were a clock and an intercom panel with a rotary phone at the top.

#11

The tracking network voice system used a massive manual switchboard up at Goddard. The radar information from the launch, orbit, and reentry was transmitted by tracking sites around the world to the computers at Goddard for processing, and then sent down to Mercury Control.

#12

The first Mercury-Redstone launch, MR-1, was only eight days away when Kraft’s team arrived at the Cape. My guardian angel, Johnson, arrived to save my bacon. He took a place to the right of the console and punched up the buttons of the intercom during our dress rehearsal.

#13

I was assigned to be the MCC procedures controller for the first mission, a ballistic test of a Redstone booster rocket and a Mercury capsule. The Redstone’s engine was scheduled to burn for two and one half minutes. After the booster engine cut off, the escape tower separated from the capsule by firing the tower ring attachment bolts and igniting the tower escape rocket.

#14

The launch complex from which we would launch the Redstone consisted of the launch pad, service tower, and a blockhouse for launch