As a flight director in NASA's Mission Control, Gene Kranz witnessed firsthand the making of history: the early days of the Mercury program, the disastrous first years when rockets blew up, the Apollo 11 landing that put Neil Armstrong on the moon, and the nearly fatal Apollo 13 mission. In this memoir, Kranz salutes the young "whiz kids" who solved daunting technical problems when it mattered most, and he discusses the leadership, discipline, and teamwork that made the space program a success. Kranz also reflects on what has happened to the space program and offers his own bold suggestions about what we ought to be doing in now.