Overview

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy issued a challenge: the United States would land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth before the end of the decade. It seemed like an impossible task and one that the Russians—who had launched the first satellite and put the first man into Earth orbit—would surely perform before us. The ingenuity, passion, and sacrifice of thousands of ordinary men and women, from all walks of life, enabled the space program to meet this extraordinary goal. In all, six crews would land on the moon before Congress withdrew financial backing for the program. This is the story of the men and women who worked behind the scenes, without fanfare or recognition, to make these missions a success. Thirty years later, they still speak of Apollo with pride, sometimes even awe. After Apollo moonwalker John Young told journalist Billy Watkins in a 1999 interview that nobody knows anything about the people who helped make those flights so successful, Watkins made it his mission to identify the unsung heroes and learn their stories. His subjects include: Julian Scheer (NASA publicist); Sonny Morea, lead designer of the Lunar Rover; Hugh Brown, one of the few African Americans who worked on the Apollo program; JoAnn Morgan, one of the few women involved in the space program; Joan Roosa, widow of Apollo 14 astronaut Stuart Roosa; Joe Schmitt, veteran suit technician was responsible for making sure the suits were leak-proof and hooked up correctly; Joseph Laitin, who came up with the idea for the Apollo 8 astronauts to read the first ten verses of Genesis during their Christmas Eve television broadcast from the moon; and Clancy Hatelberg, the Navy diver, who plucked the first humans to walk on the moon from the Pacific Ocean after the Apollo 11 landing.

Full Product Details

9780275987022

Table of Contents

Reviews

Meet the people behind the scenes of our journey to the moon as Billy Watkins magnificently portrays the human dedication of many people to achieve man's greatest adventure. - Jim Lovell, Apollo 13 commander

"""Project Apollo was one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century. In the 1960s, the US developed its space program from suborbital flights to lunar missions. Much has been written about the astronauts, flight directors, and other high-level officials who were instrumental in the Apollo program, but this book focuses on others at lower levels who played important roles in the successes of Apollo. For instance, guidance officer Steve Bales made a critical call during Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing. As the lunar module descended, several alarms sounded, but Bales decided within seconds that these were due to computer data overloads and that it was safe to continue the landing. The images from Apollo were stunning; Richard Underwood was the NASA chief of photography who trained the astronauts in this important skill. Others featured include members of the Navy recovery team, public affairs officials, telemetry and communications technicians, and the designer of the Lunar Rover, among others....Recommended. General readers."" - Choice ""Journalist Watkins takes advantage of decades of close attention as he recounts the stories of some of the thousands of men and women who made getting to the moon their daily work and uncanny passion. He includes the story of a publicist who lobbied for a television camera on Apollo 11, without which we would not have seen Neil Armstrong take that step, specialists on signal-jamming USSR submarines and lightening, and the lucky folks who got to design the Moon Rover. It is clear Watkins would like to acknowledge the efforts of all (picking just 14 must have been agonizing) but those appearing here are truly representative of a breed of scientist and engineer, whose pie-in-the-sky thinking actually worked."" - SciTech Book News"

Author Information

Billy Watkins a lifelong Mississippian, has been a newspaper reporter for three decades in his home state, telling the stories of its people. After earning a journalism degree from the University of Mississippi, he was a sportswriter from 1975 to 1990 at The Meridian Star, Jackson Daily News and the Jackson Clarion-Ledger. He was voted by his peers the state's Sportswriter of the Year three times. He then moved to general features at the Clarion-Ledger, where his work has earned him more than 40 regional and national awards. He proudly reminds people that the Saturn V rockets, which powered our astronauts on their way to the moon, were all tested in Mississippi, at Stennis Space Center.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available