What Is The Theme Of Failure Is Not An Option By Gene Kranz

In the book, “Failure Is Not an Option”, author Gene Kranz tells the story about his life as the flight director during some of the most important space missions in American History. Being an insider during this era, gave Kranz the opportunity to reveal just how unadvanced it was in its infancy. During his three decades long tenure as flight director, Kranz saw up close all of the Space Programs accomplishments and harrowing episodes. In this book, Kranz discusses how the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States was a part of the Cold War Arms Race because of missile technology, satellite coverage, and future domination of manned flights into space. The ability of each country to put satellites and men in space, was directly tied to its missile technology. Since the end of World War II, both countries had invested heavily in their missile programs as an avenue for launching nuclear warheads. Then when the space race began, that technology was just as important for launching satellites and manned flights.

This came as a shock to the American people and led to a perceived inferiority in the missile gap between the United States and the Soviet Union. “Our adversary had developed rockets with greater thrust and throw weight, for the military this meant ballistic missiles that could throw a heavier warhead a greater distance than anything in our arsenal.” (Kranz 15-16) Due to the Soviet Union’s rocket capability, they were able to launch sputnik into orbit causing a quick reaction from the Americans. The National Space Act of 1958, and the creation of NASA was an immediate result of desire to combat sputnik and the missile