Overview

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.

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9781432843472

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Reviews

Kluger, a science journalist, previously co-authored the best-selling book turned blockbuster film Apollo 13, and his latest foray into space history overflows with similarly cinematic details. Apollo 8 delivers the definitive story of what is, and always will be, one of humanity's greatest adventures. --Scientific American In spare yet vivid prose, Kluger...captures the nostalgia and excitement of a'space-drunk nation' in this gripping account of the first lunar mission.... Kluger's laudable storytelling novelistically conveys the charged politics of the era.... Readers will relish Kluger's multisensory prose, and the whole gamut of space flight comes alive in the details. --Publishers Weekly (starred review) The lead-up to the mission -- the selection of astronauts, the testing ofequipment, the training -- is just as compelling as the flight itself.... Comprehensively detailed, and written with the sure hand of someone who knows his material inside and out, the book is guaranteed to be a hit with armchair astronauts, space-program veterans, and all readers in between. --Booklist An enjoyable retelling of one of the momentous American achievements that made moon landing possible. --KirkusReviews 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, including 'The Civil War, ' 'Baseball' and 'Jackie Robinson' Drawing on historical transcriptsand documents and his own extensive interviews with the leading players, Jeffrey Kluger paints a portrait ofthe U.S. space program and the first manned expedition to the moon so vivid that we feel ourselves riding inthe hurtling rocket with the astronauts, taut with the thrill, the danger, and the cosmic meaning of the mission. Apollo 8 is storytelling at its best. --Alan Lightman, MIT professor of humanities, and best-selling author of The Accidental Universe This irresistible tale is full ofrocketry 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 witand 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, andBill Anders and follow their record setting trip to the moon. Jeffrey has got it all exactly straightand 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 best-selling author of 'Spaceman'

Author Information

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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