When NASA committed to putting a man on the moon, the directive was unmistakable: failure was not an option. That mindset—made famous during the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo eras—was not about optimism or pressure. It was about discipline, preparation, and ruthless root-cause analysis . In Failure Is Not an Option , researcher, engineer, and author F. M. “Red” O’Laughlin, III adapts the same failure-prevention principles used by NASA flight directors—popularized in Gene Kranz’s Failure Is Not an Option —and applies them far beyond spaceflight. This book asks a simple but uncomfortable question: Why do smart people, good systems, and well-intended plans still fail? O’Laughlin’s lifelong pursuit of that answer spans: Root-cause investigations in high-risk industrial environments, including work influenced by failures in the oil and gas sector at Halliburton - Formal training in structured failure analysis methodologies - Decades as a reliability engineer performing Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) on new designs - Deep research into the human body, disease progression, and chemical cause-and-effect relationships What ties all of this together is a single principle: Failure is never random—it is always explainable. In this book, you’ll learn how to: Identify hidden failure pathways before they produce irreversible outcomes - Separate symptoms from true root causes in systems, decisions, and behaviors - Apply engineering-level thinking to personal, professional, and organizational challenges - Understand how small, ignored deviations compound into catastrophic results - Replace trial-and-error living with intentional design and prevention Unlike motivational books that focus on mindset alone, Failure Is Not an Option treats success as a designed outcome , not a hope. Whether the system being analyzed is a spacecraft, a manufacturing process, a business plan, or the human body itself, the same rules apply: Inputs matter - Feedback loops matter - Early warnings matter - And ignoring data always has consequences This book is for readers who want more than inspiration. It is for those who: Want to minimize failure rather than recover from it - Believe success should be engineered, not guessed at - Are willing to examine why things break instead of assigning blame - Want to apply proven analytical frameworks to real life Failure is not an option—not because we demand perfection, but because we can learn to see failure coming and stop it in advance .