Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox
Simon and Schuster
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You never know what rare gem you'll find on a old bookshelf. Apollo: The Race To The Moon is one such find. Published in 1989, it's still an excellent history of the Apollo program from its inception to its unfortunate early demise after the return of Apollo 17. For space history nuts like me, it's definitely a must-read. For anyone remotely interested in how the American "space race" began and the politics, organizational challenges and personalities involved, it is well worth it.
The men (and they were mostly white males, alas) who were tasked with fulfilling Kennedy's vision of "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely within the decade" were of a different breed. Driven, dedicated, single-minded, innovative, dynamic--you can't come up with enough positive adjectives to describe them. They started with little to nothing and had to invent an organization to build launch, mission and recovery systems to meet a seemingly unreachable goal in a very short period of time.
We get to know the personalities that have become synonymous with Apollo and the space program--Max Faget, Jim Webb, Joe Shea, Gene Kranz, Chris Kraft, Werner Von Braun, among others. We feel their stress, their fears, their challenges. It was a time period and a place where the objective was more important than any one flight controller, scientist, astronaut, engineer or technician.
The Apollo program was truly a time of team spirit and self-sacrifice for the good of the whole. Americans will probably never experience such an intense time period to obtain such a lofty goal ever again.
Filled with fantastic facts, intriguing insights and introspective interviews, Apollo: The Race To The Moon will make you ask the pertinent question Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell once asked: "When are we going back?"
Rating: 4+ sushi rolls
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