To recognize that the greatest error is not to have tried and failed, but that in trying, we did not give it our best effort

Mission Control will be perfect. When you leave this meeting today you will go to your office and the first thing you will do there is to write "Tough and Competent" on your blackboards. It will never be erased. Each day when you enter the room these words will remind you of the price paid by Grissom, White, and Chaffee. These words are the price of admission to the ranks of Mission Control.

I don't care what anything was designed to do, I care about what it can do.

To recognize that the greatest error is not to have tried and failed, but that in trying, we did not give it our best effort

Spaceflight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity, and neglect. Somewhere, somehow, we screwed up. It could have been in design, build, or test. Whatever it was, we should have caught it. We were too gung ho about the schedule and we locked out all of the problems we saw each day in our work. Every element of the program was in trouble and so were we. The simulators were not working, Mission Control was behind in virtually every area, and the flight and test procedures changed daily.

We've never lost an American in space, we're sure as hell not gonna lose one on my watch! Failure is not an option.

Failiure is not an option.