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

 

My friends and I are going to Titusville Saturday to watch the planned launch of the Artemis 1 moon mission, and I hope we'll have better luck than I have had in the past trying to catch a launch. To get in the mood, I've been reading Andrew Chaikin's lengthy history of the Apollo program, A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts.

The word "definitive" gets thrown around a lot in nonfiction book reviews, but A Man on the Moon really is the definitive account of Apollo. Chaikin managed to interview 23 of the 24 Apollo astronauts, many of whom are dead now, so this is the literal last word for many of them. The author goes into each man's background and motivations, weaving their stories into the overarching tragedy-and-redemption narrative that was the Apollo program (like many books on Apollo, Chaikin begins by memorializing the fallen astronauts of Apollo 1 - Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee).

As you can tell from the title, this is an astronaut-focused account, so if you're looking for details on the political or technical history of the program and the hundreds of thousands of hardworking NASA folks who made Apollo possible, you may want to look at other books. However, if you want to hear about flying to the moon from the people who did it, this is the book to read.