Apollo: Race to the Moon

Rating:
Summary: Amazon now has the new paperback edition
Review: Amazon is now selling the 2004 edition (which no longer has the subtitle "The Race to the Moon"). Search on "Apollo" for title and "Murray" or "Cox" for author.

Rating:
Summary: The best book on the engineering achivements of Apollo
Review: It is a crying shame that this wonderful book appears to be VERY out of print. It answers all the questions any technologically curious person would have about the design of the systems, the testing, how mission control worked, what all those acronyms really mean, the geeky geniuses and tough managers that made the program succeed. it covers the surprising numbers of "glitches" that made every mission more dramatic than news reports led viewers to believe.

Could it be that author Murray followed up this gem with the controversial The Bell Curve, and the publishing establishment is reluctant to see him prosper? Or is there a less nefarious explanation?

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Summary: A Highly Recommended History of Apollo
Review: Perhaps the best general account of the lunar program, this history uses interviews and documents to reconstruct the stories of the people who participated in Apollo. Although published in 1989 and long out of print, "Apollo: The Race to the Moon" still stands out as the best popular book on the subject ever to appear. Neither a warmed over account of the astronauts and their adventures on the Moon nor a large-format illustrated history--both of which are in abundance--this book seeks to understand the larger contact of Apollo by focusing on the massive technical and scientific infrastructure that made the trips to the Moon possible. Taking as its central characters not the astronauts but the managers and engineers who ran the program, this book by famed author and political lightning rod Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox is based extensively on interviews with the remaining actors of the endeavor. The authors spent considerable time talking to NASA officials, both active and retired, at the Johnson Space Center, the Marshall Space Flight Center, and the Kennedy Space Centers, as well as high level officials in Washington. In this book Murray and Cox reconstruct a non-scholarly account of Apollo that examines operational details of the program that have gone undiscussed in astronaut-centric works.

By taking this approach Murray and Cox shift the history of Apollo to its most appropriate place. They recognize that the feat, as impressive as it was and as heroic as the astronauts truly were, was essentially an accomplishment of systems management. It was an endeavor that demonstrated both the technological and economic virtuosity of the United States and established national preeminence over rival nations--the primary goal of the program when first envisioned by the Kennedy administration in 1961. It had been an enormous undertaking, costing $25.4 billion with only the building of the Panama Canal rivaling the Apollo program's size as the largest non-military technological endeavor ever undertaken by the United States and only the Manhattan Project being comparable in a wartime setting.

Murray and Cox emphasize that Project Apollo was a triumph of management in meeting the enormously difficult systems engineering and technological integration requirements. James E. Webb, the NASA Administrator at the height of the program between 1961 and 1968, always contended that Apollo was much more a management exercise than anything else, and that the technological challenge, while sophisticated and impressive, was also within grasp. More difficult was ensuring that those technological skills were properly managed and used. Webb's contention was confirmed in spades by the success of Apollo. NASA leaders had to acquire and organize unprecedented resources to accomplish the task at hand.

There is a wonderful editorial in the November 1968 issu of "Science" magazine, the publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which speaks to the management system that Murray and Cox bring to life in this book: "In terms of numbers of dollars or of men, NASA has not been our largest national undertaking, but in terms of complexity, rate of growth, and technological sophistication it has been unique....It may turn out that [the space program's] most valuable spin-off of all will be human rather than technological: better knowledge of how to plan, coordinate, and monitor the multitudinous and varied activities of the organizations required to accomplish great social undertakings."

If you want to understand the Apollo program, you must read and ponder this important book by Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox. I only wish it were still in print.

Rating:
Summary: The best book on the engineering achivements of Apollo
Review: The stories of a very dedicated group of people who had a goal (pushed by president Kenedy)of landing a man on the moon, and returning him safetly to earth. You can feel the tension of the men after the apollo 1 fire. You can experience the triumph of apollo 4. Feel the near paralysis of Sy Liebergot as he tries to wrestle with apollo 13. This story also has some very funny moments, like Chris Kraft thinking (due to a prank) that he actually launched a rocket during a simulation. Very much worth reading!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: It is back in print...
Review: There are also audio files, and lots of extra pictures not included in the book at their website, where you can also buy the book.

You can get more information at http://www.apollostory.com/


Rating:
Summary: Magnificent engineering viewpoint on Apollo.
Review: This book is built around the very human stories of the engineers (not the astronauts; who cares about those damn astronauts?) who built a machine that took men to the moon and back. It's truly amazing, when you think about it. In less than eight years, they built a great big machine that took people to the surface of the moon and back. It's not often you get to see engineers portrayed as heros, but that's exactly what this book is all about. The authors, Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox, have a real flair for digging into the details that make the stories and the people come to life, underscoring this is how it really happened. All engineers should read this book; it's immensely entertaining, but it's also a real sourcebook of stories about how to get extraordinarily complex engineering projects done on time and on budget. Caldwell Johnson, one of the lead designers of the Apollo vehicle, sums it up well with a terrific engineering viewpoint: "After a while, you really become appalled that you've gotten yourself involved in the thing. At first, it's an academic exercise. And then the first thing you know, there's people building these things, and they are really getting ready to do it, and you start thinking: Have I made a real bad judgment somewhere, and the damn thing is just not going to work at all?" Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: $72.95-Used!?1?
Review: This was one of my favorite books...and I loaned it to a "friend", who denied all knowledge of the loan... My heart bleeds. Please learn from me.

Please, I beg-of-you, reprint it! It is a riveting book to read but, you are not going to scalp me for $73.00 bucks...sorry.

Rating:
Summary: $72.95-Used!?1?
Review: This was one of my favorite books...and I loaned it to a "friend", who denied all knowledge of the loan... My heart bleeds. Please learn from me.

Please, I beg-of-you, reprint it! It is a riveting book to read but, you are not going to scalp me for $73.00 bucks...sorry.