Apollo

You almost feel like you are there, the people come to life, and you feel the tension along with them.

The best book I've read about Apollo since I say next to my radio listening to that amazing first landing.

There are two things that interest me about the space program: technology, and space. This book isn't really about either one. Instead, this is a book about bureaucracy. Some may find bureaucracy to be interesting. I don't. I kept going, page after page, expecting that at some point there would be a discussion of how the program's engineers overcame technical challenges and made the thing work, but all I found were discussions of office environments, meetings, management styles...it's essentially the space program from the perspective of the folks in what we would today call the Human Resources office. We have meetings at my workplace, too. I don't really need to read a book about them. What we don't have at my workplace are rockets and spacecraft. So, I was hoping to read something about them. Yes, I expect a human element to the story - technology is about people, not just machinery. (After all, it's people who make the machinery and who discover the principles behind the operation of machines and that design contraptions such as the Saturn V.) But this is a book about the post-it note aspects of the space program - where was the linkage from engineers as employees of a big agency to the technology they were creating? The whole focus on bureaucracy strikes me as utterly bizarre. To me, meetings and management fads are useless things from the sidelines that we are forced to endure but have little to do with the real work at hand. This book takes an opposite view. I completely miss whatever point it had.

Anyone who has more than a passing interest in the space program, particularly manned spaceflight, will find this book invaluable. Here is the story of the people who made Apollo and the technological challenges they faced, both on the ground and in flight. Many books focus on the astronauts and their accomplishments, but this book focuses on those who designed the spacecraft, the rockets that propelled them into space, the launch facilities at Cape Canaveral and those who controlled the flight from the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston.

For example, their are fascinating stories about the ultimate spacecraft

designer Max Faget, who designed every American spacecraft from Mercury to the Space Shuttle; the story of how an obscure engineer named John Houbolt managed to convince NASA to use the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous mode for landing on the moon against formidable opposition from already legendary figures like Faget and Wernher Von Braun; the nightmarish combustion instability problem that plagued the immense F-1 rocket engine (five of which powered the Saturn V moon rocket's first stage); the development

of the huge transporter/crawler (and its "golden slippers") that transported the already assembled rocket out to Launch Complex 39 and the building of the gigantic Vehicle Assembly Building where the assembly took place with the use of immense cranes that could set down a multi-ton

rocket state onto an egg without breaking it.

What is especially noteworthy in this book is the description of how

the legendary Christopher Kraft built the flight control system that ultimately became Mission Control at the Manned Spacecraft Center. The authors explain what the job of each of the controllers was, how they communicated between themselves and the Flight Director and what personal characteristics were needed for the people who manned these jobs. The book also says how the different Flight Directors like Gene Kranz, Glynn Lunney and Gerry Griffin, among others did their job and the crushing responsibility that was on their shoulders. Frankly, the autobiographies

of Kraft and Kranz do not describe these fascinating things like this book does. What is particularly engrossing are the descriptions of the crises that faced the controllers during the "1201 Alarm" episode Steve Bales confronted during the first lunar landing by Apollo 11's Eagle LM, the lightning strike that hit Apollo 12 during its ascent that John Aaron fixed, and, of course, the ultimate crisis of Apollo 13.

Reading this book left me in awe of the people that worked on Apollo facing the crushing pressure created by Kennedy's deadline of "by the end of the decade". It is truly an inspiring story, and unlike a similar

crash technological program called "The Manhattan Project", this one was made "in peace for all mankind".

I would also recommend for the reader who finds this book interesting, the book by Mike Gray called "Angle of Attack" which also deals with

North American Aviation's role in building Apollo, led by Harrison Storms.

There, other interesting examples of technological problem solving are illustrated regarding the building of the Command and Service Module in addition to the harrowing story of building the S-II Saturn V second state.

Perhaps the best general account of the lunar program, this history uses interviews and documents to reconstruct the stories of the people who participated in Apollo. Although published in 1989 and long out of print, "Apollo: The Race to the Moon" stands out as the best popular book on the subject ever to appear. Neither a warmed over account of the astronauts and their adventures on the Moon nor a large-format illustrated history--both of which are in abundance--this book seeks to understand the larger contact of Apollo by focusing on the massive technical and scientific infrastructure that made the trips to the Moon possible. Taking as its central characters not the astronauts but the managers and engineers who ran the program, this book by famed author and political lightning rod Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox is based extensively on interviews with the remaining actors of the endeavor. The authors spent considerable time talking to NASA officials, both active and retired, at the Johnson Space Center, the Marshall Space Flight Center, and the Kennedy Space Centers, as well as high level officials in Washington. In this book Murray and Cox reconstruct a non-scholarly account of Apollo that examines operational details of the program that have gone undiscussed in astronaut-centric works.

By taking this approach Murray and Cox shift the history of Apollo to its most appropriate place. They recognize that the feat, as impressive as it was and as heroic as the astronauts truly were, was essentially an accomplishment of systems management. It was an endeavor that demonstrated both the technological and economic virtuosity of the United States and established national preeminence over rival nations--the primary goal of the program when first envisioned by the Kennedy administration in 1961. It had been an enormous undertaking, costing $25.4 billion with only the building of the Panama Canal rivaling the Apollo program's size as the largest non-military technological endeavor ever undertaken by the United States and only the Manhattan Project being comparable in a wartime setting.

Murray and Cox emphasize that Project Apollo was a triumph of management in meeting the enormously difficult systems engineering and technological integration requirements. James E. Webb, the NASA Administrator at the height of the program between 1961 and 1968, always contended that Apollo was much more a management exercise than anything else, and that the technological challenge, while sophisticated and impressive, was also within grasp. More difficult was ensuring that those technological skills were properly managed and used. Webb's contention was confirmed in spades by the success of Apollo. NASA leaders had to acquire and organize unprecedented resources to accomplish the task at hand.

There is a wonderful editorial in the November 1968 issue of "Science" magazine, the publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which speaks to the management system that Murray and Cox bring to life in this book: "In terms of numbers of dollars or of men, NASA has not been our largest national undertaking, but in terms of complexity, rate of growth, and technological sophistication it has been unique....It may turn out that [the space program's] most valuable spin-off of all will be human rather than technological: better knowledge of how to plan, coordinate, and monitor the multitudinous and varied activities of the organizations required to accomplish great social undertakings."

If you want to understand the Apollo program, you must read and ponder this important book by Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox. I'm so glad this book is back in print. Buy it, read it, and encourage your friends to do so.

This is an excellent book covering the inner workings of the Apollo program. It does not focus on the astronauts or the missions themselves, but more about the people on the ground in Mission Control, the engineering challenges of Apollo, the management of the program, and NASA / Washington politics about space exploration at that time. Some chapters are so well done, they read like a thriller and you can't stop turning the pages. It also covers well the most important personalities of Apollo.

After reading this book, I realized how much we have lost the memories of what is probably the most incredible achievement in humankind's history. Shockingly enough, most people think about Apollo about being a thing of the past, while it is in fact our future.

Reflecting back on the sad end of the Apollo program (the plug was simply pulled in the mid-70s without any kind of follow up), it is a shame that we have lost all these years. Just imagine if we would have persevered with more missions, the eventual setup of a moon base in the 80s, moon exploration of resources, etc... Who knows where we would be now in 2007 ? Perhaps on the verge of a Mars mission, or Jupiter ? We would have impressed new generations with the same sense of awe-inspiring achievements and exploration that Apollo did 40 years ago. These emotionally inspiring achievements are the ones that elevates humankind to new heights, and this is probably the strongest feeling I felt about Apollo after reading this book.

Excellent history of Apollo and the dedicated people behind the scenes who made it all come together. This well written account is enjoyable to read and puts the program in a different context that really shines a light on the people who sacrificed so much with no thought of recognition. This is a great companion to the well told stories that focus on the astronauts. If you are interested in the Apollo program you must, must, must read this one.

An excellent book, both for its treatment of the technical issues overcome by the Apollo engineers (which were fascinating), and for the nuanced presentation of the people and organizations responsible for the program. In particular, the engineers and managers Murray and Cox describe are fascinating characters - as an engineer myself, the problems they faced resonate particularly strongly with me, and I suspect will resonate with anyone who's worked on a project with a tight deadline and an uncertain outcome.

What a great book. It is perfect and describes accurately what everyone did on Apollo. Even the janitors and the guys who maintained the crawler/tractor which everyone so admires. There were the NASA folks at Huntsville who so valiantly managed everything.

There were technicians everywhere from coast to coast and border to border. Of course, NASA built the entire superstructure such as the launch pads and the launch tower. They also stacked the Saturn V. If it weren't for NASA we would have never made it to the moon.

The perfect counterpart to Chaikin's book, and an indispensable history of the administrators and decision-makers who made the space program one of our nation's greatest successes. In this day when the word "bureaucrat" is intended as a slur and when government withdraws from the big scientific challenges, it can do us all good to remember the era when the bureaucrats were honest heroes and government dared to reach for the stars. Murray and Cox do justice to everyone from James Webb to the guys in the "trench" in Houston. An invaluable book for any serious Apollo enthusiast.

This work is an eye-opening account that helped me understand and appreciate the different points of view and contributions of all the different people who worked on Apollo. The authors do a tremendously good job of taking the one thing the astronauts have stressed--that they rode on the shoulders of giants--and bringing it into focus. Just as Andrew Chaikin's books give an excellent account of the work and preparation the astronauts went through to make the program a success, so this book tells the stories of many of the giants. It will definitely enhance your understanding and appreciation of the program!

"The space program's grip on the public imagination had begun to fade even before the first moon landing," write Charles Murray and Catherine Cox in their can't-put-it-down history of the engineering side of the American manned space program.
They add, "Whether this was inevitable or an unlucky juxtaposition of Apollo with Vietnam and domestic upheaval will never be known." Or maybe the main reason was NASA's insistence on two phony images: one, squeaky clean (and boring) personalities for all hands; and, two, the no-sweat attitude to crises.
Had NASA told the stories Murray and Cox tell, the public would have been thrilled and appalled.
We have long known that the astronauts were not squeaky clean. Astro Walt Cunningham let that cat out of the bag in the mid-'70s in "The All-American Boys." In "Apollo" we learn that the engineers were humans, too. One is described as "Butch Cassidy born 100 years too late," which is probably overstating it, but you don't operate the most complicated mechanical system in history by being timid.
"Apollo" also reveals that the "no-sweat" attitude was false. There was plenty of sweating, although NASA's engineering culture required everyone to remain composed at all times.
The really terrible crises were known to the public, if poorly understood: the testing fire that killed three astronauts and the fuel system failure that nearly stranded Apollo 13 in orbit.
Other problems that were potentially just as serious were successfully covered up by NASA, a bad habit that cost it its reputation later on.
But the unraveling of the causes of these engineering dustups reads like a mystery novel, or, a closer comparison for those who have read it, the epidemiological reporting of Berton Rouche.
What, for example, would make a rocket lift two or three inches off the pad, then shut its engines off and settle back? The answer: A technician had filed a tiny bit off one prong of an electrical plug.
Anyway, the people who designed and built spaceships were emphatically not computer nerds -- once you understand what they were up to, scientists and engineers are always interesting. This is certainly the case with the launcher specialist Werner von Braun, a mass murderer.
Murray and Cox say, "no such charges were substantiated" against Hitler's rocket scientist. They are wrong.
Von Braun's V-weapons were built by 30,000 slaves at an underground factory camp called Dora. Thousands of these slaves were worked to death, starved or slaughtered. This factory was not run by Braun's team but it could not have functioned without the intimate advice of the rocket scientists. With complicity goes guilt.

In my opinion, "Apollo" ist the best available book on the lunar program. It uses documents and interviews of the people who participated in the Apollo project, and it provides some deeper insides about the people who brought the spacecraft to the moon, like Bob Gilruth, Max Faget, Chris Kraft, Glynn Lunney and many many more.

For further reading regarding the people who worked in Mission Control, I strongly recommend "Flight My Life in Mission Control" by Chris Kraft and "Failure is not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond" by Gene Kranz.

For anyone who is intersted in learning about the Apollo moon program, this book, combined with Andrew Chaikin's "A Man on the Moon", should be considered the two essential baseline texts. The two compliment each other perfectly. AMOTM describes things primarily from the astronaut point of view, while this book fills in the perspective of the engineers, administrators, and controllers who made it all happen.

An excellent page-turner. If you're interested in Apollo, this book is not to be missed.

Shepherd,Armstrong,Krantz,Lovell...these are the names we all know. This book is about how you start from basic principles and engineer your way to your goal.

Inventing the technology as they went, this book gives you the failures, the disasters and the triumphs from the perspective of those that actually made it happen - and is every bit as gripping and awe-inspiring as the tales told by the men who sat on top of thousands of tons of explosive fuel watching the clock tick down.

The true story of America's race to space.

Apollo, formerlly Apollo: The Race to the Moon, focuses not so much on the astronauts, but on many of the unsung heroes who made the Moon landings possible. It is therefore a very human story of ordinary people who, long ago, did an extraordinary thing.

Highly recommended.

--Mark R. Whittington(...)

I've read many books about the Apollo program.... This is by far and away the best!. It captures the thrilling pace of the whole space program in the 1960s, from the initial efforts of the US to compete with the Soviet Union, the tragedy of the launch pad fire of "Apollo 1", the daring decision to make Apollo 8 a trans-lunar flight, the seat of the pants landing of Apollo 11 and the near disaster and "diving catch" to rescue Apollo 13! This is a true classic of non-fiction and I can recommend it to one and all!

full of great stories, names, dates, places, very accurate. another great book is Moon Lander. conspiracy buffs, read this book and all your questions will be answered. ( oh, i forgot, you dont want to really know the facts, sorry ).

If you are interested in the history of the Apollo program, this is a great book. Its not about the astronauts, but rather the men behind the program, the engineers and designers that made this program a success.

Its packed with details, so if you are interested in the inter workings of NASA at the time, I would recommend it.

I found this 'history' very comprehensive. Like all others on Apollo certain areas receive deeper treatment than others. I found it heavy going in parts but it is good value for money. A pity it was out of print for so long.