Rating: 
Summary: Way too many errors
Review: I worked as an engineer on the Gemini and Apollo projects, with McDonnell in St. Louis and at the Cape, working for Boeing. I am an avid reader of space history, and feel qualified to comment.I would therefore like to point out a few errors and discrepancies in the book which I found to be very irritating: Pg. 63: (caption) The rocket identified is the facilities test vehicle, AS-500F, not AS-504. Pg. 69: There is no such thing as "fuel cell batteries"; they were either fuel cells OR
batteries. (caption) The official crew designation was Lunar Module Pilot (LMP), not Lunar Module Co-pilot (even on flights where there was no LM). Pg. 79: (caption) As evidenced by the high sun angle, this photo was taken several hours after sunrise. Pg. 82: I don't think the rocket's tanks were at a very high pressure; that was the purpose
of the fuel and oxidizer pumps. The diameter of the "internal brain" (and the S-IVB third stage) was 22 feet, not
30. Pg. 89: Identifying captions for the liquid hydrogen lines and the oxygen tank are
reversed. Pg. 92: AS-501 was the rocket for Apollo 4, not AS-504 (2 places) Pg. 94: The diameter of the first and second stages was 33 feet, not 36. The CSM was built in California, not Washington The actual term used was "turning basin", not "turn basin". The CSM and LM were trucked from the landing strip to the MSOB, not the
VAB. See photo on pg. 116. Pg. 95: The actual term used was "turning basin", not "turn basin". Pg. 96: There were only 3 active firing rooms in the LCC during Apollo, not 4. The actual term used was "turning basin", not "turn basin". Pg. 99: (caption) I don't think that is Mr. Wendt; G.W. wore heavy glasses. (See pg.
130.) He also spells his name "Guenter". Pg. 100: Apollo 8 was beginning its arc toward orbital velocity, not escape velocity.
Escape velocity came several hours later. The center of gravity shifted as the fuel was consumed, not as the engines moved. Pg. 102: The Apollo countdown began about 4 days before launch, not 28 hours. There were many more that 15 television display screens in the LCC firing room;
check the photo on page 132. Pg. 105: Apollo 8 entered orbit behind the moon; they didn't enter orbit and then prepare
to travel around the far side. Pg. 130: (caption) Mr. Wendt spells his name "Guenter", not "Gunter". Pg. 144: Apollo 11 deployed the ALSEP package, not EASEP. (Ref First on the Moon, by
Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins, pg. 283) Pg. 146: Armstrong has admitted he never said "...for a man". That is what he intended,
but he left out the "a". This is quite obvious if you listen to the radio
transmission. Pg. 166: The astronauts breathed pure oxygen, not air. Pg. 182: The LM atmosphere was pure oxygen, not air. Pg. 207: (caption) According to the photo on pg. 225, Apollo 15 landed farther away from
the visible center than Apollo 17 did. Pg. 214: The CSM atmosphere was pure oxygen, not air. Pg. 216: The main purpose of the flotation collar was to keep the CM from sinking, not
tipping over. Pg. 217: The yellow line should be identified as "re-entry trajectory", not "launch
trajectory". Pg. 242: The Orbital Workshop atmosphere was to be pure oxygen, not air. Pg. 253: I assume the scale on the right side represents meters; it should be so stated. General: Many terms are abbreviated (V.A.B., C.S.M., etc.) when in fact they were not written that way. We used VAB, CSM, KSC, etc. Oddly enough, LM seems to be the only one written correctly in the book. There are many references to the LM's "cockpit stage". While this is where the cockpit was located, the correct term is "ascent stage". I never heard the term "cockpit stage" used. Despite all these comments, I really enjoyed the text and the photos. The book also introduced me to some interesting websites I had not seen before.
Rating: 
Summary: Wow!
Review: If you are wondering if there are any pictures, diagrams or info from the Apollo program that we haven't seen yet, the answer is in this book: and the answer is yes,and then some! I agree with the other reviews. This book is beautiful visually and informatively. So glad that it was published. We need to keep showing the world what we did, and why we should still be doing it, with books like this. Thanks Mr. Reynolds!
Rating:
Summary: Gorgeous!
Review: Not much new information here, but a beautiful coffee table book with stunning photos and schematics.
Well worth it for the avid NASA geek (like me) or someone with just a passing interest in Apollo.
Rating:
Summary: Terrific introduction to Apollo!
Review: Sheesh! These 'rivet-counters' below just don't know how to enjoy a good book. I love this book: it's a great read, and the range of photographs and illustrations are terrific! I especially like the foldout of the Saturn V rocket, which has been completely reillustrated. Don't let these nitpickers discourage you. They don't know what they're missing--it's called the forest, not a few debatably knotted trees.
Rating:
Summary: Apollo
Review: The first single-volume illustrated retrospective of the dynamic individuals, stunning technology, and dramatic events that put us on the moon. For centuries men had dreamed of reaching Earth's pale companion in the night sky, but it was not until a novelist dramatized the possibilities of a new era that a way to reach upward became more than fantasy. Inspiration drove a generation of rocket theorists and experimenters to design new instruments and build in their minds the way to the stars. A world war seized the power of these new instruments and filled them with strength. In the aftermath two superpowers engaged in a duel over the world's imagination, and their arena became the realm beyond the clouds. Their weapons became the instruments of the visionaries. And their ultimate contest would drive both powers in an unprecedented race to set foot on the sky. The Apollo missions were undertaken as a political gamble, but it would embark mankind upon an odyssey of the spirit.
David West Reynolds provides the reader with an engaging reconstruction of all the key events and personalities behind the Apollo saga. No less important, the narrative avoids being ensnared by the arcane nomenclature and acronyms associated with NASA. Reynolds innovates new terminology, finding ways to make the complex systems of Apollo easy to understand: the Lunar module's DPS descent propulsion system becomes the "landing engine"; the Extravehicular Mobility Unit and its Integrated Thermal and Micrometeoroid Garment become, simply, the Apollo Moon suit and its white cover layer, with the design and function of the suit carefully described in layman's terms. Reynolds recasts he complex details of lunar geological history into four great ages, and such clarifications appear throughout the book. Apollo has never been so accessible. Throughout, the goal is to enhance our technical understanding without any loss of subtlety or distortion of science. Reynolds is both a storyteller and interpreter.
Rating:
Summary: Apollo - Out of this world
Review: The quest to reach the moon was indeed an epic journey involving, as I learned, hundreds of thousands of men and women to make the dream a reality. As a person not previously acquainted with the lengthy cast of characters responsible for taking this idea from drawing board to reality, I nevertheless found this account to be readily accessible and extremely engaging. The author has clearly taken pains to distill volumes of research down to a flowing narrative that reveals insights into the lives of those behind the scenes, as well as the astronauts themselves, who worked tirelessly to achieve their goal of landing a man on the moon. The beautiful illustrations and breathtaking photographs will not be lost on anyone, but do not overlook the useful descriptions of scientific hardware relayed in laymans terms, which are, thankfully, free of scientific lingo that only an engineer could love, or at least understand. I found particularly interesting the final section of the book, which describes planned future missions of the Apollo program that never came to pass. While the public in the 1970s may have lost interest in such missions, the public in the 21st century can only look back with envy. The fascinating explorations that would have been so easy to undertake decades ago, today seem impossible to imagine for decades to come. Thanks to this book, however, the reader can relive for a time the sense of wonder and excitement that surrounded this epic journey. We can only hope that one day we can continue the voyage of discovery where the previous generation left off.
Rating: 
Summary: Spiffy!
Review: There are a number of books on the American Apollo Moon program,
most prominently Andrew Chaikin's excellent A MAN ON THE MOON, and so
the question that David West Reynolds' APOLLO: THE EPIC JOURNEY TO THE
MOON poses is whether another book on the subject really brings
anything to the party. The answer is YES, in that Reynolds is taking a somewhat different
approach to the subject. Chaikin's book is relatively long and
detailed, but has no illustrations and is fairly nontechnical.
Reynolds' book is substantially shorter, heavily illustrated, and has
a much more technical bent. All three of these virtues make Reynold's book probably a better bet
for the casual reader, someone who is interested in the Moon flights
but would be perfectly happy with a tidy summing up, focusing in
reasonable detail on the flights themselves but giving a fairly brief
discussion of the background. Even the more serious reader will find the book's layout and
illustrations outstanding. It's crammed full of pretty pictures and
paintings, ranging from the Chesley Bonestell artwork of the
1950s Colliers / Disney "space program" to fine NASA photography of
the Moon missions. Serious readers may also find the technical
"sidebars" on items such as the "Moon buggy" and unfulfilled advanced
Apollo missions to have some very interesting information in them. Those who would want to understand the broader scope of the Apollo
program, including its political background, would probably prefer
Chaikin's A MAN ON THE MOON. Reynolds' tends to ignore the politics
behind the Moon program, which in itself could be regarded as a
rational decision to focus on some things and ignore others. Unfortunately, to get to the most negative comments I can make about
Reynolds' book, the author occasionally does get on a soapbox, doing a
little flag-waving and sometimes playing "eager young space cadet".
A bit of patriotism is fine, of course, but in a few places I felt
as though I was reading the text with someone playing STARS & STRIPES
FOREVER on a kazoo in the background. As far as being a space
cadet goes ... well, yes, I admire the astronauts and believe that
Werner von Braun was a remarkable man in many ways, but the astronauts
were not Boy Scouts, and much more to the point, von Braun was noted
for his arrogance as well as brilliance, and he'd got his hands dirty
working for the Nazis in a way that would never quite come clean. The soapbox exercises are infrequent and can be ignored. This is
fortunate, because APOLLO: THE EPIC JOURNEY TO THE MOON is otherwise
a creditable piece of work. I give it four stars and not five to
emphasize that not everyone might want to buy this book. Serious
students of the space program might want something more substantial.
However, I think almost anybody would like to page through such a
pretty book, and casual readers should find it both interesting and
informative. I think adolescents would be particularly taken with it. I did find one small bug in the book: a picture that is supposed to
be of the launch of the first Earth satellite, Sputnik I, is actually
of a Soviet manned space launch, a Vostok or some later capsule.
This is not a killer bug by any means, just listing it as a minor
correction.
Rating:
Summary: Very, very good
Review: There have been many colourful large format books on the Apollo missions published over the years, and by now most of them must have made their way to the secondhand stalls, but David West Reynolds' book is sure to became a treasured momento. In addition to a lucid and very informative commentary, it contains carefully drawn illustrations and exquisitely produced pictures, including some specifically assembled lunar panoramas. It is like Michael Light's 'Full Moon', but in colour!
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty pictures, but...
Review: This book is remarkable for the images it contains, some of which I've never seen in any other publication (and I've been devouring books like this since I was in the 3rd grade in 1967). However, Dr. Reynold's prose borders on purple, the text is poorly edited, and for a book of this magnitude, the writing and reporting could have been stronger. I was suspicious about the written content when I read Wally Schirra's foreword, and my suspicions were confirmed when I read the whitewashing Reynold's gave the Apollo 7 flight (it made Schirra look like a misunderstood hero, and the NASA flight directors and administrators the bad guys, when everything else I've read about that flight would lead one to believe Schirra was several times on the edge of violating mission rules, and being less than cooperative). Still, the book is filled with beautiful images, and a new fact I'd never read about or heard explained before pops up on occasion.
Rating:
Summary: A pretty children's book, but inaccurate
Review: What none of the reviews so far have mentioned is that this is essentially a book aimed at children. That should be obvious from Reynolds� previous books, all of which have been Star Wars books with lots of illustrations and two of which are "pocket" books less than 30 pages long. Although the dust jacket trumpets Reynolds� previous books, mentioning that one was a best-seller, and refers to his Ph.D., this is all misleading. Reynolds' experience is writing illustrated childrens' fiction books, not history. This book is not intended to be an accurate or comprehensive history of Apollo, but a picture book for the early teen market. The book is beautifully illustrated. Some of the artwork is excellent, and the labels are designed to be clearly understandable. The photographs are also quite good, and the author deserves much credit for using dramatic photos that have not been used in other books before. If all you are going to do is look at the photos, then this is a really good book. The text, however, leaves a lot to be desired. Often the style is one of outright cheerleading and hero-worship rather than objective history. The author does not provide a balanced critique of the Apollo program. John F. Kennedy and Wernher von Braun are brave and unvarnished heroes in this book. The problem is that this portrayal distorts reality. Von Braun, for instance, was only one of many influential people involved in the Apollo program and was not necessarily the most important engineer. Most of the work he did on the Saturn rocket was bureaucratic, not engineering. And by focusing too much on him, Reynolds detracts from the many other people who had significant impacts on the space program, such as Robert Gilruth, George Mueller, Abe Silverstein and even NASA Administrator James Webb. Similarly, Kennedy pursued Apollo solely to beat the Russians, and was never enthusiastic about space. There are also errors that indicate that Reynolds got most of his information from other books and not original research--and that he did not get anyone to fact-check his work. Some of the mistakes are not merely minor errors, but serious distortions of what happened. Take, for instance, the claim that it was a Disney space film that led President Eisenhower to start the scientific satellite program (pgs. 30-33). There is absolutely no evidence that Eisenhower even watched that program or requested a copy for the White House. And the claim that 100 million people watched it is also unsupported. Reynolds apparently got his story from the book Blueprint for Space. If he had looked at other more recent books, like Howard McCurdy�s Space and the American Imagination, or had talked to the relevant people in the history field, he would have learned that this story was false. Similarly, he also claims that President Eisenhower specifically forbade the Germans from launching Missile 29 to orbit. There is no evidence to support this claim, and other space historians, like Michael Neufeld, have explained that this missile was never capable of reaching orbit at that time (for instance, it had no guidance system). There are numerous other mistakes and omissions, but one gets the sense that the author was not about to let the facts get in the way of a good story. The book is only around 270 pages long, with over half of those pages taken up by photographs and illustrations. There is no way that such a short book could be the "best" or "most accurate" or "most comprehensive" history of a space program that spanned more than a decade and used the equivalent of over $180 billion in today's money. This is a book aimed at the early teen market, not the serious space reader. In summary, the book is fun to look at, but unfortunately will give children inaccurate information about the Apollo program. At a time when space enthusiasts get enraged that some people claim that the moon landings were faked, one wonders why they so enthusiastically embrace books that get the history wrong.
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