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In the Shadow of the Moon: A Challenging Journey to Tranquility, 1965-1969 (Outward Odyssey: A People's History of S)

In the Shadow of the Moon: A Challenging Journey to Tranquility, 1965-1969 (Outward Odyssey: A People's History of S)
By Francis French, Colin Burgess

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Product Description

In the Shadow of the Moon tells the story of the most exciting and challenging years in spaceflight, with two superpowers engaged in a titanic struggle to land one of their own people on the moon. While describing awe-inspiring technical achievements, the authors go beyond the missions and the competition of the space race to focus on the people who made it all possible. Their book explores the inspirations, ambitions, personalities, and experiences of the select few whose driving ambition was to fly to the moon.

Drawing on interviews with astronauts, cosmonauts, their families, technicians, and scientists, as well as rarely seen Soviet and American government documents, the authors craft a remarkable story of the golden age of spaceflight as both an intimate human experience and a rollicking global adventure. From the Gemini flights to the Soyuz space program to the earliest Apollo missions, including the legendary first moon landing, their book draws a richly detailed picture of the space race as an endeavor equally endowed with personal meaning and political significance.

(20080201)

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #442223 in Books
  • Published on: 2007-09-01
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 448 pages

Features

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The Gemini program has always been NASA's quiet, superachieving middle child, overshadowed by the space cowboys of the Mercury years and Apollo's lunar prospectors. French, an executive at Sally Ride Science, and Burgess, author of Fallen Astronauts, chronicle the missions on which American astronauts learned how to live in space for more than a few hours; steer a spacecraft around the Earth at almost 20,000 miles an hour; rendezvous with a companion ship; and navigate to another world and return safely. The authors relate that during the early Gemini missions, in the mid-'60s, several crews came close to ending in tragedy before NASA had the bright idea to have Buzz Aldrin practice in a Baltimore swimming pool for the final flight, Gemini 12. The book also covers the Apollo program and the U.S.S.R.'s simultaneous space efforts. Although the authors interviewed surviving astronauts, family members and NASA staff for some fresh material, space aficionados will know most of this saga by heart. For young readers born decades after man last walked on the moon, this is a readable introduction to the first years of America's leap into space. Illus. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"[A] readable introduction to the first years of America's leap into space."-Publishers Weekly (Publishers Weekly 20070918)

"French and Burgess present a first-rate, detailed, and very personal account of the space race to the moon . . . . Strongly recommended both as a study of the social interactions among this unique group of people and as a gripping series of anecdotes that describe the exciting, dangerous steps behind the successful moon landing."-CHOICE (W.E. Howard III CHOICE )

"Authors Burgess and French are even-handed and equitable, and have done an excellent job in covering a vast expanse of material. . . . The opportunity to get the true stories from the astronauts themselves is a luxury that will sadly not be available forever, and In the Shadow of the Moon has done an excellent job in gathering and eliciting the stories of these men, not just the ''official reports,'' but the personal touches that render them more human. . . . The authors have a touch for weaving revealing and captivating personal narratives amidst the nuts-and-bolts space history."-Michael Patrick Brady, PopMatters.com (Michael Patrick Brady PopMatters.com )

"This book has everything you ever wanted to know about the astronauts that paved the way for the first Moon landing. Rarely does one get the entire information of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programmes, encased in one book, about the men who entered the dangerous and untried realm of flying off the Earth."-Jeff Green, Liftoff (Jeff Green Liftoff )

About the Author

Francis French is the former director of events for Sally Ride Science, and the current director of education at the San Diego Air & Space Museum. Colin Burgess is a former flight service director with Qantas Airways and the author of many books on spaceflight, including Fallen Astronauts: Heroes Who Died Reaching for the Moon, available in a Bison Books edition. He is the coauthor with Francis French of Into That Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the Space Era, 1961–1965 (Nebraska 2007). A NASA astronaut from 1963 to 1971, Walter Cunningham was a crew member on the first manned Apollo flight.

Customer Reviews

A masterful addition to the literature of space history 5
French and Burgess have written a wonderful book with lots of vivid details. For example, I was captivated by reading Gene Cernan's account of the intense pain and difficulty he had during the his Gemini EVA.

The vividness and suspense flows well. The editing is excellent. A must have book for any serious space history buff.

Tahir Rahman, author of We Came in Peace for all Mankind

Outstanding History of Manned Space Flight!5
I've been reading space history books since my earliest days, as I grew up in the first decade of the space program - and yet many of these stories are new to me. I've read almost every astronaut book that's come out over the last 35 years and this book, along with "Into That Silent Sea," tells the manned space flight story like no books before. I love it so much I'm going to go back and read the first one next. I took my time reading "In the Shadow of the Moon", as the book is like a very fine wine that can't be hurried through. I needed to take small sips of each chapter and savor the history and never-before-told personal stories. My thanks to the authors for putting this history and these memories to paper and sharing them with the rest of us; I'm glad the subjects shared their time and memories.

Another great book5
Another great book on the Golden years of Spaceflight . Francis and Colin really have the "right stuff". Their insight and facts of the events are spot on and they have made the telling of each flight just as interesting and exciting as the previous one. Not an easy chore. I had forgotten how perilous the EVA's were and they brought back such vivid memories of them. Both "Into the Silent Sea" and "In The Shadow of the Moon" are terrific reads and a great way to "experience it all". I owe the authors a debt of gratitude for writing and accurately documenting these historical flights.