Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond I picked up this and “A Man on the Moon” to read during my convalescence, which turned out to be a lot shorter than I had anticipated.

This is an account of the goings-on at NASA Mission Control during the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo manned spaceflight programs.  Kranz has an impressive career spanning Navy pilot, joining the Space Task Group, and quickly establishing himself in the emerging Mission Control organization.  Ultimately he would come to play a pivotal role in the almost-disastrous Apollo 13 mission, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Nixon.

While many of the reviews of this book are quite positive and enthusiastic, I find Kranz’ account, while obviously informed and very authentic, to feel a little bit too autobiographical at times, and the accounts of the organizational minutiae and interpersonal dynamics aren’t terribly interesting.  What I was hoping for is a detailed account of the technical and engineering challenges that were overcome as part of the Apollo effort.  Instead Kranz is much more focused on the operational and ground support aspects, and the development of the processes, organizational structures, and methods to successfully run a manned spaceflight program. I will finish this out of curiosity and respect, but for me at least its kind of “hard slogging”.