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inhale_exhale_read's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
informative
slow-paced
3.75
This is a very dense and quite technical history of the Apollo program and its various missions. Science and engineering are not my strong suits, so I found this to be fairly dry and too detailed for my personal taste. That said, I can say that it is objectively an incredible history. I enjoy learning about NASA, but I think I will focus on more narrative nonfiction going forward and not dive so deep into the technical aspects.
knitswithbeer's review
5.0
Utterly gripping, fantastic and awesome.
I am so glad they re-released this for the 50th anniversary.
Chock full of physics, maths and engineering with a wonderful sauce of people.
Read, or listen to, it. You won't regret it
I am so glad they re-released this for the 50th anniversary.
Chock full of physics, maths and engineering with a wonderful sauce of people.
Read, or listen to, it. You won't regret it
ryanpfw's review
5.0
My second book on the Apollo program in the last year. There were so many people to keep track of I’ll admit I got 80% of the way there, but a detailed, exceptional telling of what it was like to be there from the late 50s to the early 70s. Recommended!
craftylibrarian10's review against another edition
4.0
This book is a very fascinating look at the Apollo program. I've never read anything about the scientists who built and shaped the program, since most of what is available is on the astronauts themselves. There are a lot of people to keep track of, so I think this made it tough to read, but I found that if I looked up photos of the people who popped up a lot that helped. I listed to this as an audiobook, and loved the narrator. He read like a 1960s news reporter, which gave the whole thing a new element that I really enjoyed. I'll be honest, if I had read this as a physical book I may not have finished. It is lengthy and with the difficulties of keeping everyone straight, I think this book would have remained unfinished. I'm glad I finished though, because it was worth it. It is truly amazing what these scientists accomplished with less tech than we carry around in our back pockets these days. It makes me proud in the ingenuity of this great county.
nelsta's review
5.0
This book is incredible. It is absolutely worth all the praise it gets. Pretty much all my knowledge about the Apollo program comes from watching Ron Howard’s Apollo 13, so this book provided an extensive amount of context for my juvenile understanding of what happened. Luckily for me, the authors spend a good deal of time describing the Apollo 13 incident.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Some parts I even revisited to remind myself they weren’t hyperbole. (Did you know the Vehicle Assembly Building is so large it could fit the Statue of Liberty inside it with room to spare?)
If you’re interested in the history of the Apollo program and you’re new to the topic, this is the book for you.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Some parts I even revisited to remind myself they weren’t hyperbole. (Did you know the Vehicle Assembly Building is so large it could fit the Statue of Liberty inside it with room to spare?)
If you’re interested in the history of the Apollo program and you’re new to the topic, this is the book for you.
barryhaworth's review
5.0
In this, the 50th anniversary year of the first moon landings, I have decided to revisit some of my favourite books about the Apollo program. Seeing the moonwalks on TV are some of my earliest memories and this book was one of the first I read when I rekindled my interest in such things in my 30s.
This book is an excellent introduction to the Apollo program, but one which takes a different approach to most. Most histories will concentrate on the flights and the astronauts; this book talks about the engineers, the administrators, the launch systems. There is a chapter devoted to the mode decision (Direct ascent, EOR or LOR?), others to the launch pad (the vitally important "stage zero") and the first test flights of the great Saturn rocket, and the more sombre event of the Apollo 1 fire and its aftermath. Only the last hundred pages or so of this 450 page book deal with the moon landings themselves, but the lead up to these events is no less exiting and full of human interest and drama.
Highly recommended.
This book is an excellent introduction to the Apollo program, but one which takes a different approach to most. Most histories will concentrate on the flights and the astronauts; this book talks about the engineers, the administrators, the launch systems. There is a chapter devoted to the mode decision (Direct ascent, EOR or LOR?), others to the launch pad (the vitally important "stage zero") and the first test flights of the great Saturn rocket, and the more sombre event of the Apollo 1 fire and its aftermath. Only the last hundred pages or so of this 450 page book deal with the moon landings themselves, but the lead up to these events is no less exiting and full of human interest and drama.
Highly recommended.
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