In August 1968, NASA made a bold decision: in just sixteen weeks, the United States would launch humankind’s first flight to the moon. Only the year before, three astronauts had burned to death in their spacecraft, and since then the Apollo program had suffered one setback after another. Meanwhile, the Russians were winning the space race, the Cold War was getting hotter by the month, and President Kennedy’s promise to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade seemed sure to be broken. But when Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders were summoned to a secret meeting and told of the dangerous mission, they instantly signed on.
Written with all the color and verve of the best narrative non-fiction, Apollo 8 takes us from Mission Control to the astronaut’s homes, from the test labs to the launch pad. The race to prepare an untested rocket for an unprecedented journey paves the way for the hair-raising trip to the moon. Then, on Christmas Eve, a nation that has suffered a horrendous year of assassinations and war is heartened by an inspiring message from the trio of astronauts in lunar orbit. And when the mission is over—after the first view of the far side of the moon, the first earth-rise, and the first re-entry through the earth’s atmosphere following a flight to deep space—the impossible dream of walking on the moon suddenly seems within reach.
The full story of Apollo 8 has never been told, and only Jeffrey Kluger—Jim Lovell’s co-author on their bestselling book about Apollo 13—can do it justice. Here is the tale of a mission that was both a calculated risk and a wild crapshoot, a stirring account of how three American heroes forever changed our view of the home planet.
PAT'S REVIEW
| I am very late on this review but regardless, this was a fantastic book. For those who don’t know or don’t remember Apollo Seven never happened, what did happen was the tragic death of three men Grissom, White, and Chaffee. The spark that ignited the fire inside of the capsule was just something that could have been fixed as what took place many years later with the shuttle. Men become complacent, we all do it, especially when we do the same job every day and every day or each mission is a success. The space program was something I followed as a kid, I had an uncle that worked on the rockets for the Gemini, then Apollo missions. The author goes through just who important the Apollo 8 mission was for the overall space program as a whole and that was something that I did not know at the time. He takes you through the lives of the astronauts what happens before and what happens after when they return. I do remember them having to be quarantine for so many days before they could see their family or others. I received this book from Netgalley.com I gave it 5 stars. Follow us at www.1rad-readerreviews.com |
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