Review: Failure is not an Option by Gene Kranz
Failure is not an Option written by Gene Kranz speaks about three NASA programs: Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.
(Photo credits: NASA). Failure is not an option is a book written by Gene Kranz. I have a vulnerability when rockets and aircraft appear in my eyes and the pages I am following, I love these little toys and the physics embedded. This book is really good. Kranz can combine a good and rigorous story, explaining the steps and problems they resolved during each launch, mission, and orbit as well as giving personal details of his interaction with astronauts, teams, and superiors. The book speaks about the development of the American space program, being there the programs Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. The cornerstone of this book is to understand why and how they were successful with all their missions and programs.
The Mercury Program
Mercury was the first program to develop the knowledge for sending humans to space. The United States was losing the space war on the cold war frame. The Soviets were able to complete important goals in the space race. In this section of the book, Gene explains how was the process of getting enrolled in this NASA program. The people, he says, were young with little experience in rockets. Most of them came from the aeronautical field. The talent was there, but the experience wasn't. The Mercury program used two booster rockets; the Redstone and the Atlas. The Redstone was an Army battlefield rocket. The Atlas was an Air Force intercontinental missile and was to be used for both ballistic and orbital Mercury missions. The early space hardware had much in common with the imaginary technology in a Jules Verne science fiction novel. The capsule used steam-powered thrusters for control (the steam being generated by the reaction between hydrogen peroxide and a catalyst in a nickel chamber attached to the thrusters), a periscope for visual tracking, and an electric Earth globe for determining position.Freedom 7
The Mercury-Redstone 3, on May 5, 1961, was the name of the mission to get into space the astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American that went to this dark sky. The capsule was called Freedom 7 and was able to reach 100 Km above sea level, accomplished five minutes of weightless. The rocket used was the Redstone-Atlas. Don’t forget that the Soviet Union put the first human in orbit a couple of weeks before with Yuri Gagarin, in April of 1961.Gemini Program
This program was, in general, a trainer for astronauts and ground control. The big mission was Apollo. That´s why Gemini helped to develop experience with long space missions. It was a mission sending two astronauts per mission. They learned how to do the rendezvous and docking in space. The last astronaut of Mercury was Gordon Cooper in 1963. The Gemini program started in 1965, almost two years since the last Mercury mission with ground support. The program began with Gemini 1 in April 1964. During the program, the Russians put another important event on history books, Aleksei Leonov became the first human to walk in space. However, the Americans were closing the gap that the Russians had.Apollo Program
Apollo was one of the biggest NASA programs ever developed. NASA created the technology, knowledge, and infrastructure to send humans to the moon. It's insane the amount of everything in this program. The rocket that boosted the astronauts to the moon was the Saturn V. It was developed by Verner Von Braun, a German engineer (Broun was part of the Nazi rocket program, designing and building the V2). The Saturn V had a power of 7.7 million pounds with 363 feet of height. Then, when the rocket completed the first stages, the system relies on three major components: The lunar module, the service module, and the command module.Apollo 1
Gus Grison, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee died due to a fire inside the command service module (CSM). They were doing tests on the CSM to check everything was good. The specific cause of this accident was never identified. They don´t know how it began. However, the conditions are more than clear; a sealed cabin with a lot of oxygen and many parts acting like consumables. It was just time to create a spark and initiate the fire.Apollo 11
It was the Apollo mission that put humans on the moon's surface. One of the most interesting parts of the book is to read how Gene explains that, due to the training made days before the real mission, they were capable to resolve a problem that appeared during the final stage of the moon landing; the 1202 alarm. This error was caused because the computer was overloaded. All in this mission is incredible; the images, the limited time to land, the communication with Huston, and the remarkable words of Neil Amstrong after the landing: "Huston, tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed". Then, when he stepped on the moon, he said: "That´s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind".Apollo 12
This mission was struck with lightning during the lift-off, but the mission was successful. That´s it. No more.Apollo 13
This was the mission of the disaster. An oxygen tank exploded during the mission causing hard moments for both the crew and ground control. From this mission comes the popular phrase "Huston, we have a problem". Hopefully, the crew came back to earth. However, some things changed to improve the design of all the components. Other oxygen tanks were added to avoid the problem in the future. There are some phrases I liked of the book.Phrases extracted from the book
To be done with this review, I highly recommend reading it. I think that the space program, and especially the Apollo one, is one of the most impressive things the human race has ever made. Reading this book you realize that the people behind are humans, with wives, husbands, kids, and friends. It is a motivational book to overcome problems.