Failure Is Not an Option (2003)

Genres - Historical Film  |   Sub-Genres - Biography, Physical Sciences, Social History  |   Run Time - 120 min.  |   Countries - United States  |  
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Synopsis by Hal Erickson

Failure is Not an Option is a two-hour documentary based on the memoirs of former NASA flight director Gene Kranz. Culled from miles and miles of archival government and TV-network footage, the film covers the history of manned space flight from the early missions of Alan Shepherd and John Glenn to the Apollo 13 crisis of 1970 (Kranz was played by Ed Harris in the filmed re-creation of that incident). As in the book, the special's focus is on Mission Control's emotional responses to momentous historical events, never more movingly than during the fatal capsule fire that claimed the lives of three astronauts in 1967. Among those interviewed in Failure is Not an Option are ex-astronaut Jim Lovell and Kranz's fellow flight director Chris Kraft.

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Keywords

behind-the-scenes, career-retrospective, director, memoir, NASA, space-program, space-race, test-pilot