Apollo: The race to the moon PDF
Preview Apollo: The race to the moon
“Rich, densely packed, and beautifully told... filled with cliff-hangers, suspensea,n d spine-tingling adventure.” The Washington Post Book World MM igre The Race to the Moon “THIS BOOK IS A ‘GO.’ ”’ —Chicago Tribune ‘*An excellent new history of the Apollo program by Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox that describes the heroic bureaucracy that sent men to the moon six times between 1969 and 1972. It is an epic ‘captured in miniature,’ a story told largely without astronauts, focusing instead on the men who designed, launched and tracked the astonishing flying ma- chine.’’ —Wall Street Journal ‘‘A riveting tale calculated to grab and hold the attention of anyone who enjoys real-life adventure and intrigue.’”’ —The San Diego Union ‘‘Thoroughly researched . . . the definitive story of the infancy of the U.S. space program.”’ —Chattanooga Times ‘‘Murray and Cox’s description of the final moments of lunar lander Eagle’s descent is tension defined.’’ —Philadelphia Inquirer ‘*Successfully humanizes an epic political and technological tale.”’ —The Orlando Sentinel ‘*An unusual history book. It makes you chuckle and brings tears to your eyes. It reminds you that this nation was not always afraid to take risks. It presents a look at the past that is also a guide for the future.”’ —21]st Century Science and Technology By CHARLES Murray Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980 In Pursuit: Of Happiness and Good Government APOLLO THE RACE TO THE MOON Charles Murray AND Catherine Bly Cox A TOUCHSTONE BOOK Published by Simon & Schuster Inc. New York London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore AN Touchstone Simon & Schuster Building Rockefeller Center 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, New York 10020 Copyright © 1989 by Cox and Murray, Inc. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. First Touchstone Edition, 1990 Toucustone and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc. Designed by Irving Perkins Associates Manufactured in the United States of America ss 7 QO) ts @ 4h 2 U Sey OP eye) ? AF 1H) Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Murray, Charles A. Apollo, the race to the moon / Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox jh Cin Includes index 1. Project Apollo (U.S.) I. Cox, Catherine Bly. II. Title. TL789.8.U6A558 1989 629.45'4—dc20 89-6333 ile ISBN 0-671-61101-1 0-671-70625-x Pbk. For all the people who gave their best to Apollo— and for their families, who did too. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation httos://archive.org/details/apolloracetomoon0000murr_d0q4 Contents Acknowledgments 9 Apollo Abbreviations 11 Prologue 13 BOOK I. GATHERING 1. ‘‘That famous Space Task Group is akin to the Mayflower’’ P| 2. ‘‘IT could picture the astronauts looking down at it with binoculars’’ eH 3. “‘Those days were out of the Dark Ages’’ 46 4. ‘He would rather not have done it’’ ag 5. ‘‘We’re going to the moon’’ AD BOOK IJ. BUILDING 6. ‘‘The flight article has got to dominate’ 87 7. “‘We had more harebrained schemes than you could shake a stick at’’ 100 8. ‘‘Somewhatas a voice in the wilderness . . .”’ 113 9. ‘What sonofabitch thinks it isn’t the right thing to do?’’ 124 10. ‘Tt aged me, I’m sure”’ 144 11. ‘Tt sounded reckless’ 155 12. ‘‘Hey, it isn’t that complicated’’ 166 13. ‘‘We want you to gof ix it’ 179 14. ‘“‘Did he say ‘fire’ ?’’ 189 7 8 CONTENTS “The Crucible’ 206 “You've got to start biting somewhere’ 226 ‘And then on launch day it worked’ Paci) FLYING “We're going to put a guy in that thing and light it’ 250 “There will always be people who want to work in that room’’ 270 “The Flight Director may take any necessary action’ 282 ‘There was no mercy in those days’’ 291 “You've lost the engines?’’ 308 “It was darn scary”’ 320 “We... we’re go on that, Flight’ 35 “Well, let’s light this sumbitch and it better work’’ 356 “‘T think we need to do a little more all-weather testing”’ 371 “You really need to understand that the C.S.M. is dying’ 387 “You don’t have time to worry’’ 408 “IT hope the guys who thought this up knew what they were doing’’ 424 “We drank the wine at the pace they handed it to us”’ 447 Epilogue: Twenty Years after the First Landing 459 Apollo as History 465 Notes 473 Glossary 489 Index 493
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