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The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon
by Jeffrey Kluger
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 Day, 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.
"Starred Review. Kluger's laudable storytelling novelistically conveys the charged politics of the era while revealing difficult technical concepts." - Publishers Weekly
"An excellent book told with spirit and verve and enough spaceflight details to satisfy even the most dedicated student of the program." - Library Journal
"An enjoyable retelling of one of the momentous American achievements that made the moon landing possible." - Kirkus
"No matter how many times you return to the Apollo missions, you never exhaust their thrilling seat-of-your-pants suspense. But here, in the superbly capable hands of Jeffrey Kluger, the little known story of Apollo 8 bursts vividly to life. I couldn't put it down." - Ken Burns, Director of more than two dozen films, includingThe Civil War, Baseball' and 'Jackie Robinson'
"Drawing on historical transcripts and documents and his own extensive interviews with the leading players, Jeffrey Kluger paints a portrait of the U.S. space program and the first manned expedition to the moon so vivid that we feel ourselves riding in the hurtling rocket with the astronauts,taut with the thrill, the danger, and the cosmic meaning of the mission. Apollo8 is storytelling at its best." - Alan Lightman, MIT professor of humanities, and best-selling author of The Accidental Universe
"This irresistible tale is full of rocketry and space science, all of it elegantly explained, but it's the extraordinary cast of characters that remains with you, as human as they are heroic and each portrayed with wit and empathy by a master story-teller." - Geoffrey C. Ward, author of A First-Class Temperament
"It was refreshing to read about my friends Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders and follow their record setting trip to the moon. Jeffrey has got it all exactly straight and I enjoyed reading it very much." - Michael Collins, Command Module Pilot, Apollo 11
"One of our greatest accomplishments – people truly leaving our planet for the first time – finally gets its due. Jeffrey Kluger colorfully captures the time, the people,and the mission of Apollo 8 with an entertaining and informative account of the stories of this historic adventure. This book let me relive my little boy inspiration to explore space." - Mike Massimino, shuttle astronaut and author of Spaceman
This information about Apollo 8 was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jeffrey Kluger is the author of several books, including Apollo 13 (originally published as Lost Moon) and The Sibling Effect. As a science editor and senior writer for Time for more than two decades, he has written more than forty cover stories for the magazine. He lives in New York City.
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