Apollo 8 Apollo 8

Apollo 8

The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

    • 4.6 • 139 Ratings
    • $11.99
    • $11.99

Publisher Description

The untold story of the historic voyage to the moon that closed out one of our darkest years with a nearly unimaginable triumph

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.

GENRE
Science & Nature
RELEASED
2017
May 16
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
336
Pages
PUBLISHER
Henry Holt and Co.
SELLER
Macmillan
SIZE
30.5
MB

Customer Reviews

fishdocFP ,

20th century history

Thoughtful and well-researched account of one of the most important events of the 20th century. I appreciate the author placing the space race in context of the Cold War, which had also placed the US in Vietnam. Apollo 8 was the first time the US took the lead in the race with USSR and catapulted our nation to the moon landing less than 8 months later. 20 years later a wall was torn down in Berlin. Let us not take for granted the achievements the people and spirit of our nation accomplished through an agency called NASA.

ARG3 ,

Interesting

Good book

bigboss77 ,

Beautifully Written

A trip back in time where America and Space decided to finally join together.

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