Failure is not an option. I want you to just
let that phrase sit with you for a second. It
is, without a doubt, one of the most iconic sentences
in the history of exploration. I mean, maybe
even in the history of the 20th century. Say
those five words to anyone, anywhere in the world,
and what immediately pops into their head. It's
almost Pavlovian, right? You immediately picture
the the smoke -filled room of mission control.
You see the tension, the white shirts, the skinny
ties, the coffee cups just piling up everywhere.
Yeah, exactly. And specifically, you see Flight
Director Gene Kranz. He's standing there in that
famous white vest, rallying the troops to save
three astronauts stranded in space on Apollo
13. It is the ultimate expression of the American
can -do spirit. It's engineering prowess. It's
grace under pressure. It is the definitive motto
of NASA. But here is where we have to drop the
hammer right off the bat. And this might actually
hurt some of our space enthusiast listeners.
Brace yourself. Gene Kranz never actually said
that. It sounds completely unbelievable, doesn't
it? Given just how ingrained it is in our collective
memory, it feels like finding out, you know,
Sherlock Holmes never actually said elementary.
my dear Watson, in the books. Right. But you
are absolutely right. If you go back to the transcripts
of the Apollo 13 loop and we have literally thousands
of hours of audio from April 1970, you will not
find that sentence anywhere. Nowhere at all.
So we have a massive historical mystery on our
hands today. We are doing a deep dive into the
true origins of failure is not an option. If
Kranz didn't say it during the mission, Who did?
And how did a phrase that was never even spoken
become the defining creed of the entire space
program? This is exactly what I love about this
topic. We aren't just, you know, debunking a
quote to be pedantic. We are looking at how history,
memory, and storytelling all intersect. We are
looking at how a false quote can sometimes tell
the true story of an event better than the actual
facts can. Which is a wild concept to wrap your
head around. It really is. And for our deep dive
today, we've pulled together the records on the
1995 film Apollo 13, Gene Klantz's own autobiography,
and the 2003 History Channel documentary to really
trace this lineage. OK, so let's unpack this
because I think a lot of us feel a little betrayed
right now. I know I did when I first read the
source material. If it wasn't said in the heat
of the moment in 1970, when was it born? Are
we talking about a post mission press conference
or something? No, we actually have to look much
later than that. To find the origin, we have
to fast forward about 25 years. We need to go
from the life or death tension of 1970 to the
pre -production phase of the 1995 Hollywood movie
Apollo 13. Wow. So the phrase is younger than
the event it describes by a quarter of a century.
That is a lifetime in aerospace years. Precisely.
So the screenwriters for the film Al Reiner and
Bill Broyles, they were doing their homework.
They weren't just writing a generic sci -fi script.
They really wanted it to feel authentic to the
era. They wanted the real jargon, the real feel
of the room. Exactly. So they traveled down to
Clear Lake, Texas to interview the real people
who were in the trenches during the crisis. And
this brings us to a man named Jerry Bostic. Now,
for those who don't know the organizational chart
of NASA, who exactly is Jerry Bostic? Jerry Bostic
is a legend in his own right. He was the Fido.
That stands for the Flight Dynamics Officer.
In the intense hierarchy of mission control,
the FIDO is the person directly responsible for
the trajectory of the spacecraft. OK, so they
are the ones calculating the physics of how to
get from point A to point B. Right. Without bouncing
off the Earth's atmosphere or, worse, drifting
off into deep space forever. So he's not just
some guy at a desk. He is the navigator. If he
gets the math wrong by even a fraction, the astronauts
do not come home. The stakes are literally infinite
for a Fido. So the screenwriters Reiner and Broyles
are sitting down with Bostic. They are trying
to get inside the head of a flight controller.
And naturally, because they are screenwriters,
they are looking for the drama. They want to
find that emotional breaking point. Right. They
need a movie moment. They want a scene of someone
throwing a chair or I don't know. Breaking down
in tears over a slide rule. Correct. They want
the human frailty. So they asked Bostic a very
specific, almost leading question. They asked
him, weren't there times when everybody or at
least a few people just panicked? And honestly,
that seems like a totally fair assumption to
make. You've got an oxygen tank explosion. Power
is dying. The cabin is freezing. The CO2 levels
are rising. Surely someone in that room must
have freaked out. That's exactly what the screenwriters
assumed. Any normal person would panic. But Bostic's
answer was pure engineer. It was completely pragmatic.
I actually have his quote from the interview
right here. He told them, no, when bad things
happen, we just calmly laid out all the options
and failure was not one of them. Let's really
dissect that sentence for a second because it
is the smoking gun of this entire deep dive.
We calmly laid out all the options and failure
was not one of them. It's just so bureaucratic.
He wasn't trying to make a bumper sticker, a
slogan. He was literally describing a procedural
workflow. He was saying, we looked at option
A, option B and option C. Failure simply wasn't
on the list of options we were authorized to
consider. It's a beautiful, unvarnished glimpse
into the engineering mindset. To Bostic, he was
just explaining their decision tree. You don't
put the crude dyes as a branch on a decision
tree. You only map out the viable solutions.
And the funny thing is, according to the historical
records, Bostic actually thought the interview
was going terrible. Oh, really? He didn't realize
he had just handed them pure gold? Quite the
opposite. He said he sensed that Bill Broyles,
the screenwriter, was getting restless and just
wanted to leave. Bostic is sitting there talking
about trajectories and calm, methodical procedures.
And he naturally assumes Broyles is bored out
of his mind because there's absolutely no drama
in the story he's telling. That is hilarious.
You're Jerry Bostic. You're thinking, man, I'm
boring these Hollywood guys to tears with my
technical talk. And meanwhile, Bill Broyles is
sitting there and his storyteller brain is just
starting to Bostic didn't even find out until
months later. But apparently, as soon as the
writers got into their rental car to leave the
Clear Lake facility, Royals just started screaming.
No way. Yeah, he yelled, that's it. That's the
tagline for the whole movie. Failure is not an
option. That is the real aha moment. The iconic
phrase wasn't spoken in the tense atmosphere
of mission control in 1970. It was born in a
rental car in 1995. What's so fascinating here
is the translation process. Bostic provided a
dry technical explanation of how they systematically
solved problems by logically eliminating failure
as a viable path. Broils, with his dramatic ear,
heard a profound declaration of will. He took
a descriptive sentence and weaponized it. Exactly.
He took failure was not one of the options and
tightened it into the absolute imperative. Failure
is not an option. It really is the difference
between the passive voice and the active voice.
Yeah. Bostic is saying, we didn't look at failure.
Broils translates that into, we forbid failure.
It's brilliant writing. One is a factual observation.
The other is a command. And just like that, a
slogan is born. But of course, it didn't stop
at the script. It had to be delivered to the
audience. And that brings us to the performance
that truly sealed the deal. We absolutely have
to talk about Ed Harris. The portrayal that completely
defined Gene Kranz for an entire generation of
moviegoers. In the 1995 film Apollo 13, Ed Harris
plays Gene Kranz. And there's that pivotal scene.
The NASA director expressing doubt, worrying
they might lose the crew, and Harris turns around,
and the writers didn't just have him say the
line casually over a cup of coffee. They gave
it immense weight. They absolutely dramatized
it for maximum impact. In the film, the character
of Krantz says, we've never lost an American
in space. We're sure as hell not going to lose
one on my watch. Failure is not an option. Chills.
Seriously, I get chills every time I hear that
delivery. It's pure defiance. It is a phenomenal
piece of cinema. But if you compare it to Bostick's
original quote, you see the massive tonal shift
we were talking about. Bostick was so calm. We
just calmly laid out the options. Ed Harris is
intense, commanding and highly emotional. So
the general public sees the movie. The movie
is a massive blockbuster hit. And suddenly millions
of people think this is exactly what Gene Kranz
actually yelled across mission control during
the Apollo 13 crisis. It entered the cultural
lexicon almost immediately. It became the tagline
for the film, appearing on all the posters and
theatrical trailers. It became the shorthand
for that entire historical event. It moved directly
from a Hollywood screenplay into the history
books, or at least into our collective memory
of history. But here's where the story takes
another turn that I find really surprising. Yeah.
Usually when Hollywood makes something up or
dramatizes an event, the real historical figures
get pretty annoyed. They say, hey, that's not
how it happened. I never said that. Don't put
words in my mouth. Right. You very often see
astronauts or historic figures publicly correcting
the record trying to fiercely protect the accuracy
of the official logs. But in this case something
very different happened with the real Gene Kranz.
Let's talk about his autobiography because this
blew my mind when I read the source material.
So let's fast forward to the year 2000. This
is five years after the Apollo 13 movie comes
out. The real Gene Kranz is writing his definitive
memoir about his long career in NASA. And what
does he choose as the title of his life story?
Failure is not an option. He adopts the fictional
Hollywood line as the title of his own factual
memoir. That is just amazing to me. He basically
leaned all the way into the myth. He saw what
Ed Harris did and said, yeah, I'll take that.
That's me now. He absolutely did. And he actually
explains why in the book, which I think is crucial
for us to understand, he readily acknowledges
that he didn't say it during the mission. But
he says he chose the title because he liked the
way it reflected the attitude of mission control.
It's like he's saying, OK, I didn't say these
exact words in that exact order, but these words
perfectly capture the vibe of the room. Exactly.
In fact, in the book, he goes a step further
than just liking the phrase. He refers to it
as a creed that we all lived by. He formally
calls it a creed. So life imitates art, which
was originally imitating life. It's a complete
feedback loop. Jerry Bostic describes the mundane
reality to a screenwriter. The screenwriter dramatizes
it for an actor. The actor delivers it powerfully
to the world. And then the real -life inspiration,
Gene Kranz, looks at that dramatization and says,
yes, that is us. That is our creed. It solidifies
the phrase as historical fact, even if it's technically
a retrofit. It's almost like the phrase was out
there waiting to be found. And its influence
didn't stop with Krantz's book. The phrase just
continued to expand its territory. In 2003, the
History Channel produced a major comprehensive
documentary. And you can probably guess what
it was titled. Let me guess. Failure is not an
option. You got it. You really start to see the
pattern. By 2003, you couldn't even tell the
story of NASA without using those specific words.
But this documentary wasn't just about Apollo
13, was it? No, and that's a key point to draw
from the sources. The documentary significantly
broadened the scope. It covered the U .S. space
program all the way from the launch of Sputnik
through the entirety of the moon missions. It
used failure is not an option as the overarching
umbrella theme for the entire era of the space
race. And looking at the cast list for this documentary,
it's a total who's who of NASA legends. It really
is unparalleled. You have Chris Kraft, the original
flight director. You have Jim Lovell, the commander
of Apollo 13. You have Gene Cernan, the last
man to walk on the moon, Wally Schera, Glenn
Lennie, Jerry Griffin, and of course, Jerry Bostic
and Gene Kranz are front and center. So by voluntarily
participating in a documentary with this title,
all these historical legends are essentially
cosigning the phrase. They are agreeing that
this Hollywood invention is the accurate headline
for their life's work. It firmly frames the narrative
of the men and women behind the space program,
which is how the History Channel positioned it.
It connects the dots between the guys in the
trenches, the flight controllers, the engineers,
and that high -level almost philosophical concept
of refusing to accept defeat. I want to dig into
that concept for a minute, because failure is
not an option. Sounds great on a bumper sticker
or a t -shirt, but as a technical philosophy,
isn't it kind of dangerous? I mean, in the harsh
reality of physics, failure is definitely an
option. Things break. That is a fascinating nuance
that the sources touch on. In a literal physical
sense, yes, failure is always an option in spaceflight.
Gravity doesn't care about your feelings or your
slogans. If a valve sticks, you die. If the O
-ring fails, the shuttle explodes. But the phrase,
as adopted by these specific engineers, isn't
a statement about the laws of physics. It's a
statement about their internal methodology. Ah,
I see. So it's not hubris. It's a rigorous, unyielding
process. Exactly. Look at someone like John Aaron,
who is prominently featured in that same documentary.
He's the flight controller who famously saved
Apollo 12 when it got hit by lightning shortly
after liftoff. Right, the telemetry turned to
total garbage, all the lights were flashing.
Most normal people would have aborted the mission
right there. Failure was literally staring them
in the face on their monitors. But Aaron remembered
a very obscure, specific switch setting from
a random simulation a year prior. The famous
SCE2O moment. Yes. He didn't accept the failure
of the systems as the final answer. He calmly
found the one path where the systems still worked.
When you look at their specific contributions,
you see the actual mechanics of failure is not
an option. It wasn't just macho bravado, it was
a highly systematic approach, where they literally
removed the option of failure by always finding
a workaround, a backup, or a brand new procedure.
So when the documentary uses that title, it's
not celebrating blind optimism, it's celebrating
that specific type of relentless problem solving.
Yes, perfectly stated, it shifts the focus from
the astronauts, who are obviously the visible
heroes in the capsule, to the unseen problem
solvers on the ground. And that phrase, that
creed, belongs entirely to the ground. It belongs
to the people sweating at the consoles. It's
funny when you think about Jerry Bostic sitting
in that mundane interview room back in the 90s.
He probably thought he was just clearing up a
minor misconception about panic in the workplace.
He had no idea he was actively drafting the title
for the next three decades of space history.
It really shows the power of a good editor, doesn't
it? Bill Broyles heard the gold hiding in the
gravel. But I think it also raises a really profound
question about how we view history in general.
How so? Well, we often obsess over strict accuracy.
Did he say it? Did he not say it? Let's check
the tapes. And technically, as we've established,
no, Krantz didn't say it. But is the phrase actually
false? That's a really tough one. Factually,
yes, it's false. Emotionally, maybe not. Precisely.
If Bostic, Krantz, and the rest of the mission
control team universally agree and say, this
phrase is our creed, then it becomes true in
a completely different way. It becomes a valid,
enduring summary of their core values. It's what
we might call emotional truth. It's almost like
the phrase was just lingering there in the atmosphere
of the room in 1970, but it took a Hollywood
outsider in 1995 to finally give it a name. And
that's very often the vital role of storytelling
in our society, to condense highly complex realities
into something we can easily hold onto and pass
down. We calmly laid out all the options and
failure was not one of them is the procedure.
Failure is not an option is the myth. And the
reality is human beings need both. We certainly
do. It's wild to think about the butterfly effect
of it all. If Jerry Bostic had phrased his answer
just a little differently, maybe if he had said,
we didn't consider failure a possibility, we
might have had a completely different movie title.
Failure is impossible. It doesn't quite have
the same ring to it, does it? Or we don't do
failure. No, broils definitely had the ear for
the drama. And I think that's exactly why it
resonated so strongly with Gene Kranz himself.
Krantz was the conductor of that massive orchestra.
He had to keep everyone in that room believing
that there was a solution, even when the telemetry
data strongly suggested there wasn't. The phrase
captures the heavy burden of command perfectly.
So let's recap. this incredible journey for everyone
listening, because it really is an amazing game
of historical telephone that went right instead
of wrong. It starts with the absolute reality,
the calm methodical work of Jerry Bostic and
the engineering team during the actual Apollo
13 crisis in 1970. They were just running the
numbers, laying out the viable options. Then
25 years later, we get the translation phase.
Screenwriter Bill Broyles hears Bostic's very
dry explanation and crystallizes it into a brilliant
active tagline while sitting in a rental car.
Then comes the performance. Actor Ed Harris delivers
the line with the fierce intensity and defiance
that forever defines the public image of Gene
Kranz. Which directly leads to the endorsement.
The real Gene Kranz adopts the movie line for
his own autobiography, validating it as the emotional
truth of the actual mission. And finally, we
reach the legacy. The History Channel and the
entire space community fully adopt the phrase
as the definitive label for the golden age of
NASA. It's a perfect closed circle. And it honestly
makes me wonder, what other famous historical
quotes are actually just really good screenwriting?
Oh, probably a lot more than we'd like to admit.
But in this particular case, I think we can easily
forgive the factual inaccuracy because the end
result is just so universally inspiring. It gives
us a necessary shorthand for complex heroism.
Absolutely. When you are facing a massive looming
deadline at work or trying to navigate a really
complicated problem in your personal life, you
don't look in the mirror and say, I'm going to
calmly lay out the options. You say failure is
not an option. Right. It actively rallies the
human spirit. It completely changes your own
internal psychology. What does this all mean
for you, the listener, who probably isn't guiding
damaged spacecraft to the moon today? Why does
this historical distinction actually matter?
I think it's a really powerful reminder that
we have the power to frame our own narratives.
Jerry Bostic was just doing his job. He didn't
see himself as a dramatic hero in an action movie.
He was just a guy trying to figure out a trajectory.
But when you step back and look at the bigger
picture, just like the screenwriters did, you
can see the profound heroism in simple, everyday
competence. That is a genuinely great point.
Sometimes you really do need an outsider to look
at your daily grind and say, Wow, what you are
doing is actually incredible. And it also teaches
us a lot about the nature of truth in history.
We tend to strictly think of history as just
a dry list of dates and audio transcripts, but
history is also what we collectively feel about
those events. Failure is not an option as historically
false, but it is deeply emotionally true. And
sometimes the emotional truth is what actually
endures the test of time. It's the version of
the story we need to survive. It turns a highly
chaotic, terrifying event into a permanent lesson
about human resilience. It truly is. And honestly,
it's just a lot catchier than naming a documentary
the retroactive application of a screenplay tagline
to a historical event. Yeah, I really don't think
that title would have sold as many books for
Gene Kranz. Definitely not. Well this has been
a truly fascinating look behind the curtain of
one of our absolute favorite quotes. It's a great
reminder to always check the original sources,
but also to deeply appreciate the storytellers
who shape our world. And to appreciate the engineers
who give the storytellers something amazing to
write about in the first place. Without the actual
math, the movie ends very very differently. Amen
to that. Before we go though, I do want to leave
you with something to really chew on. We've universally
accepted failure is not an option as the reality
of Apollo 13. It is now the official creed. So
here is the question for you. If a quote captures
the essence of a historical event perfectly,
better than any actual sentence spoken at the
time, does it really matter that it was never
said? At what point does the Hollywood script
become more real to us and perhaps even more
valuable than the actual historical transcripts?
That is a heavy, fascinating thought to end on.
Does the legend become the fact? In this case,
I think it just might have. Well, thank you all
for listening to this deep dive. We hope you'll
never look at that movie or that phrase the same
way again. Thanks for listening. We'll catch
you on the next one.