Apollo Books

[iceman (Mike)]

Can anyone recommend any good Apollo books?

I bought 3 for my Kindle (on iPad) last night.

- Digital Apollo
- The Last Man on the Moon: Astronaut Eugene Cernan and America's Race in Space
- Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module (Smithsonian History of Aviation and Spaceflight)

Can't wait to get stuck into them!

[goober (Doug)]

Carrying the Fire (Michael Collins) is way and above the best of the astronaut memoirs. Brilliant book. Collins is quite a humble writer, with some lovely subtle humour.

Chaikin's A Man On The Moon is a terrific read.

Moon Lander is good too - quite technical.

[pluto (Hugh)]

My favorite is "Apollo: Expeditions to the moon" which was released by NASA at the end of the Apollo program.
http://www.amazon.com/Apollo-Expedit.../dp/9997398270
or NASA has a (pretty dodgy) digital copy online at:
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/cover.html
Pretty technical and each chapter is written by the key people responsible, for example the Apollo 11 section is written by Aldrin and Collins and the Saturn V chapter is written by Von Braun!

I would also recommend "Moonfire" by Norman Mailer if you like his writing and that book has lots of great images.

[pluto (Hugh)]

Also, slightly OT, if you really want to learn the details of the mission I found I learned heaps by playing the complete mission in Orbiter and NASSP.
http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/index.html
http://nassp.sourceforge.net/wiki/Main_Page

Orbiter is a simulator and has a steep learning curve but it is a great way to learn orbital mechanics. Every detail is simulated really well even down to having to learn the switches in the CM and LM and the codes for the Apollo Guidance Computer Completeing a simulated AS-506 mission was very informative, challenging and satisfying.

[gary]

Hi Mike,

I have begun reading this one now -

Originally Posted by iceman

Digital Apollo

Originally Posted by iceman

Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module (Smithsonian History of Aviation and Spaceflight)

If you ever watched the television series "From the Earth to the Moon", the author of this
book, Tom Kelly, is the engineering manager for the LM project that was depicted
in Part 5 - Spider - as the guy bouncing the rubber balls against the wall out the back
of Grumman with the homage soundtrack of "The Great Escape" playing.

[acropolite (Phil)]

Not sure how I found it but I downloaded a free eBook from Kobo titled Apollo 13 Lunar Experiments and Photography Summary.

[sheeny (Al)]

It might be a bit OT, but Space Race by Deborah Cadbury I found quite interesting. It includes a lot of stuff about the Russian space prgram as well. I have both the book and the DVD of the TV series. I haven't found it as an ebook though.

Al.

[phobos (John)]

Apollo - Charles Murray & Catherine Cox
Failure is not an option - Gene Kranz
How Apollo flew to the moon - Woods (For the tech minded)

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

I second Al's recommendation - Deborah Cadbury's "Space Race". A real insight into the Von Braun/Korolev struggles with their own agencies. Brilliantly written.

Second - I also vote for Andrew Chaikin's "A Man on the Moon". Probably my favourite.

I'm also reading (Kindle):

"Moon Lander" - Tom Kelly

"The Man Who Ran the Moon" - James E. Webb

"How Apollo Flew to the Moon" - W. David Woods

"Rocket Man" - Pete Conrad

"Apollo" - Charles Murray & Catherine Bly Cox

And for something different: "Energiya-Buran" - the Soviet Shuttle by Bart Hendrickx

[acropolite (Phil)]

I'm just re-reeading First on the moon, a chronological record of the compete Apollo 11 mission an excellent read, although I'm not sure if it's still in print. I also have First Man, the Neil Armstrong story and Return to Earth which details the highs and lows of the first lamding exprience from Buzz Aldrin's perspective.