Special Edition: Apollo 11
With the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission coming up in July, I thought I’d highlight some books about Apollo 11 released this month. Visit our catalog for a list of additional titles being released this month.
“One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon” by Charles Fishman
President John F. Kennedy astonished the world on May 25, 1961, when he announced to Congress that the United States should land a man on the Moon by 1970. No group was more surprised than the scientists and engineers at NASA, who suddenly had less than a decade to invent space travel. When Kennedy announced that goal, no one knew how to navigate to the Moon. No one knew how to build a rocket big enough to reach the Moon, or how to build a computer small enough (and powerful enough) to fly a spaceship there. Charles Fishman introduces readers to the men and women who had to solve 10,000 problems before astronauts could reach the Moon. From the research labs of MIT, where the eccentric and legendary pioneer Charles Draper created the tools to fly the Apollo spaceships, to the factories where dozens of women sewed spacesuits, parachutes and even computer hardware by hand, Fishman captures the exceptional feats of these ordinary Americans. “One Giant Leap” is the captivating story of men and women charged with changing the world as we knew it.
“The Moon: A History for the Future” by Oliver Morton
Every generation has looked towards the heavens and wondered at the beauty of the Moon. Fifty years ago, a few Americans became the first to do the reverse– and shared with Earth-bound audiences the view of their own planet hanging in the sky instead. Recently, the connection has been discovered to be even closer: a fragment of the Earth’s surface was found embedded in a rock brought back from the Moon. And astronauts are preparing to return to the surface of the Moon after a half-century hiatus– this time to the dark side. Oliver Morton explores how the ways we have looked at the Moon have shaped our perceptions of the Earth: from the controversies of early astronomers, to the Cold War space race, to the potential use of the Moon as a stepping stone for further space explorations.
“Moonbound: Apollo 11 and the Dream of Spaceflight” by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm
On a summer night in 1969, two men climbed down a ladder onto a sea of dust at the edge of an ancient dream. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first set foot on lunar soil, the moon ceased to be a place of mystery and myth. It became a destination. Now, on the fiftieth anniversary of that journey, “Moonbound” tells the monumental story of the moon and the men who went there first. With vibrant images and meticulous attention to detail, Jonathan Fetter-Vorm conjures the long history of the visionaries, stargazers, builders, and adventurers who sent Apollo 11 on its legendary voyage.
More books coming out this month about Apollo 11:
- “Chasing the Moon: The People, the Politics, and the Promise That Launched American into the Space Age” by Robert Stone and Alan Andres
- “The Apollo Missions: The Incredible Story of the Race to the Moon” by David Baker
- “Apollo 11: The Inside Story” by David Whitehouse
