Outside Reading Post #3

One of the themes is see prevailing in this book is not only the important human characteristic of never giving up (as demostrated by the books title), but that hard work may at some times be a bad thing. It seems to me, as I stated in my last post, that Gene's wife is simply sick and tired of him never being home and would enjoy his increased company. However, Mr. Kranz's excrutiatingly hard work has left him stuck at Cape Cavnaveral until further notice. There is simply not enough time in the week, the month, of even the year to take an 'unnecessary' break and visit his family. I sense that this will be a major conflict later on in the book when the Space Race really takes off and the Americans set a goal of being the first to put a man on the moon.

Failure is Not an Option #2

In this next chapter in my book the narrarator talks about his time after the first sucessful American man in space. Mr. Kranz details his hard work with making the manual on how to operate the mission control, which was his main duty when he first arrived at the Cape. His growing experience from the frequent launches that take place at Cape Canaveral have helped him write this manual, which figures to be the precedent for every other mission control in the United States. Mr. Kranz knows he is in the middle of American History, but he says that there is really no time to step back and "smell the roses" so to speak. Gene says he is always on the move, always working, getting almost no time at all to sit back, relax, and reflect on his workday like most of his fellow Americans. He also says that the hectic work takes a toll on his growing family. He has a baby on the way, and although his wife says that she fully supports him and his work, he can sense a longing for him from his wife and it seems to me that it eats him up inside.

Failure is Not an Option

My choice of quarter 2 outside reading is a book title Failure is Not An Option, by Gene Kranz. Mr. Kranz was the original head of mission control and really the voice of the space movement during the 20th Century. In the first chapters of the book, we learn about how the space program started out- with only a handful of men in a primitive program nicknamed Mercury. Mr. Kranz was a former WWII Air Force Pilot that was interested in the space race with the Soviets during the early days of the Cold War. His task was to put together a launch manual- the first of its kind- for the days that the space ships would be taking off. He essentially wrote it on the job, as him or any other of his colleagues had any experience with space control. He goes on to talk about how the men had many failures and were viewed as an American failure in the public's eyes. He then details the account of the days before and the day of the first American was going into space. This book is an exciting nonfiction account of how the space program in the United States was started from scratch and turned into one of the most successful in the world.

All My Sons

I thought that All My Sons was an interesting book and drew alot of compassion out from the reader. The fact that Joe Keller kills himself was tragic and unexpected. The increasing sadness I felt as the book went on was a great aspect that the book provided for the reader. The book showed us a darker side of the pursuit of the American Dream and really opened our eyes to the faults of the justice system. It showed us that people will do anything to get out of trouble, including lying and blaming their friends. I felt that the author tried to portray that and taught us about the fact that primitive human nature is not always good. It is all about surivial and our nature is to, whether it is ethical or not, to stay alive.