Perhaps best known through Ed Harris's Oscar-nominated portrayal in the film Apollo 13, Gene Kranz was a NASA flight controller throughout the entire manned space program. Kranz witnessed everything from Alan Shepard's and John Glenn's early flights in the Mercury program through the triumph of Neil Armstrong's giant leap for mankind in Apollo 11 and the near-disaster of Apollo 13. Kranz headed the "tiger team" that saved the Apollo 13 astronauts, and he provides new details about the urgent and successful improvising that brought the crew safely back to Earth.

Failure Is Not an Option is a thrilling insider's account of Mission Control from the early years of trying to catch the Russians to the end of the manned space program. It is filled with behind-the-scenes stories, including the painful self-examination that took place following the Apollo 1 disaster and the daring decision to schedule an Apollo flight to the moon before NASA had ever launched a manned rocket beyond earth orbit. Kranz's stories about the dedication and resourcefulness of the astronaut corps and Mission Control teams show how an organization dominated by young people only in their twenties could succeed in one of the boldest missions in human history, placing a man on the moon in less than a decade.