Gene Kranz Quotes

There is no achievement without risk.

From its earliest days, NASA had followed a policy of maximum, though prudent, disclosure. We had to do everything openly - and soon under intensive, live TV coverage.

I mentally savored the moment of America's triumph like a fine wine.

Mission Control will be perfect. When you leave this meeting today you will go to your office and the first thing you will do there is to write -Tough and Competent- on your blackboards. It will never be erased. Each day when you enter the room these words will remind you of the price paid by Grissom, White, and Chaffee. These words are the price of admission to the ranks of Mission Control.

without the likes of him we would not have made it to the Moon.

The story doesn't end here, however. With no car pass and faced with a mile-long walk from the front gate, John came up with an alternative not covered by the regulations. The first day of his suspension, Llewellyn pulled his horse trailer into the parking lot at the Nassau Bay Hotel across from the NASA main gate. Mounting the horse with his leather briefcase, then showing his badge prominently to the surprised guard, Llewellyn galloped through the gate to Mission Control. For the remainder of the week we knew John was in the office or on console when we saw a horse hitched to the bicycle stand. Llewellyn's legend grew once again.

Leadership is fragile. It is more a matter of mind and heart than resources, and it seemed that we no longer had the heart for those things that demanded discipline, commitment, and risk.

Spaceflight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity, and neglect. Somewhere, somehow, we screwed up. It could have been in design, build, or test. Whatever it was, we should have caught it. We were too gung ho about the schedule and we locked out all of the problems we saw each day in our work. Every element of the program was in trouble and so were we. The simulators were not working, Mission Control was behind in virtually every area, and the flight and test procedures changed daily.

We've never lost an American in space, we're sure as hell not gonna lose one on my watch! Failure is not an option.

Tears were coursing down the faces of Kennedy's moonstruck recruits. John Kennedy had inspired us with his vision. One by one, we left work to grieve in private. The flag was at half-staff in our hearts.

Let's work the problem, people. Let's not make things worse by guessing.

I don't care what anything was designed to do, I care about what it can do.

Faliure is not an option.

To recognize that the greatest error is not to have tried and failed, but that in trying, we did not give it our best effort

Apollo succeeded at critical moments like this because the bosses had no hesitation about assigning crucial tasks to one individual, trusting his judgment, and then getting out of his way.

High-risk leadership beckons many, but few accept the call.

Although our technical backgrounds were very different, we were both emotional about our work, perpetually optimistic, and gave our people unconditional support.

Loading new software into new computers and using it for the first time was like playing Russian roulette. It demanded and got a lot of respect.