A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts

713 Pages·1994·28.17 MB·English

by  Andrew Chaikin

C ^ )n the night of July 20, 1969, our world
changed forever: two Americans, Neil Armstrong and
Buzz Aldrin, walked on the moon. After the horror
of the Kennedy and King assassinations, amid the
deepening quagmire of Vietnam, the moon landing
brought the sixties to a triumphant end. But the
upheavals of that decade have somehow eclipsed this
“one giant leap” and the even bolder explorations that
followed. Now Andrew Chaikin tells the story of the
Apollo missions as never before: through the eyes of
the astronauts who made those heroic voyages.
A decade in the making, A Man on the Moon is
based on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews
with each of the twenty-four moon voyagers, as well as
those who contributed unprecedented brain power,
training, and teamwork on earth. With breathtaking
immediacy, Chaikin conveys every aspect of the Apollo
missions, from the rush of liftoff atop a Saturn V rocket
to the heart-stopping touchdown on the moon, to.
V v ; . : \
the final hurdle of reentry. He tells of ‘the intense
competition for a seat on a moon flight, and of the
resurrection of Alan Shepard, at age forty-seven, from
grounded pilot to moon voyager. We see the Apollo
missions unfold from their tragic beginning—the
spacecraft fire that killed three astronauts—to their
spectacular conclusion high on the slopes of lunar
mountains, where the astronauts searched for clues to
the origin of the solar system.
Here are the stories of a unique handful of
men who have been to the farthest edge o an
experience. For the first time, we learn vh ;
men inside the space suits truly felt. Throi 1
(continued on back flap)
0694
APR 2 3 1996
629.45
Cha Chaikin, Andrew, 1956-
A man on the moon :
the voyages of the
ARCHBISHOP MITTY LIBRARY
Archbishop Mitty High School
Library
5000 Mitty Way
San Jose, CA 95129
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2012
http://archive.org/details/manonmoonvoyagesOOchai
A Man
O N T H E
Moon
Archbishop Mitty High School
Library
5000 Mitty Way
San Jose, CA 95129

ANDREW CHAIKIN
A Man
ON TH E
M o o n
The Voyages of the
Apollo Astronauts
Archbishop Mitt}
Libre
5000 Mit
San Jose, C
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VIKING
VIKING
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road,
Auckland 10, New Zealand
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
First published in 1994 by Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.
3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4
Copyright © Andrew Chaikin, 1994
All rights reserved
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint excerpts from the following copy­
righted works:
Carrying the Fire by Michael Collins. Copyright © 1974 by Michael Collins. Reprinted
by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.
“How Great Thou Art” by Stuart K. Hine. © Copyright 1953 S. K. Hine. Assigned to
Manna Music, Inc. Renewed 1981 by Manna Music, Inc., 35255 Brooten Road, Pacific City,
OR 97135. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
“Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words),” words and music by Bart Howard. TRO - ©
Copyright 1954 (renewed) Hampshire House Publishing Corp., New York, NY. Used by
permission.
“Spacewalk” and “Quietly, Like a Night Bird” from Hello Earth, Greetings From En­
deavour by Alfred M. Worden (Nash Publishing Company, 1974). Reprinted by permission of
the author.
Title page and part title photograph: Apollo 12 moon view, courtesy NASA.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Chaikin, Andrew, 1956 —
A man on the moon : the voyages of the Apollo astronauts / by Andrew Chaikin.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-670-81446-6
1. Project Apollo (U.S.)—History. 2. Space flight to the moon — History. I. Title.
TL789.8.U6A5244 1994
629.45'4'0973—dc20 93-48680
Printed in the United States of America • Set in Elante
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part
of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise),
without the prior written permission of both the copyright
owner and the above publisher of this book.
For my father and mother