Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon [Paperback]

Mike Gray (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1994

As the world observes the 25th anniversary of the first man on the moon, this exciting book tells the gripping story of the engineers who answered President Kennedy's challenge and devoted their lives to accomplishing the impossible. "A fascinating book . . . about what Americans can achieve with vision and teamwork."--Buzz Aldrin.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Imagine a version of The Right Stuff whose protagonists are engineers rather than cocky test pilots-turned-astronauts. Author Mike Gray gives a gripping account of the men who led the North American Aviation Company through one of the largest and most daunting engineering projects in history, the development of the S-2 rocket engine, and the Apollo spacecraft. Filled both with detailed technical background and explorations of the psyches who drove--and were sometimes crushed by--the race to the moon, Angle of Attack offers a captivating look at the monumental accomplishments of a bygone era.

From Publishers Weekly

A look at the corporate and technological drama in the U.S. space program.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (June 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 014023280X
• ISBN-13: 978-0140232806
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,189,331 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Was There, August 4, 2005

By 

Conley S. Thatcher "Tpsicon" (Placentia, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon (Paperback)

I don't intend to write a long analytical review like some already posted. I just want to say that I was there at NAA as a young engineer during the period covered by this book. I absolutely loved the book. I couldn't put it down and wanted it to never end. To those critics who ask "Is it really true?", I can only say that those parts that covered events that I witnessed personally are uncannily in sync with my recollections. What an adventure it was! I don't think we could do it again, in today's environment, even with twice as much budget and time.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A "MUST" FOR EVERY LIBRARY ON APOLLO, July 12, 2002

By 

givbatam3 "givbatam3" (REHOVOT Israel) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon (Paperback)

I am aware that this book has been called "pro-North American Aviation (NAA) propaganda", but even if it is slanted in their favor, it is still very well worth reading. The book gives the background of legendary aerospace leader Harrison Storms and NAA starting from his windtunnel work after the attack on Pearl Harbor, demonstrating the feasiblilty of launching B-25 bombers off the deck of an aircraft carrier which enabled Jimmy Doolittle to carry out his audacious raid on Tokyo, through the development of the famous P-51 Mustang, F-86, and F-100 fighters, up to the Mach 3 B-70 bomber and X-15 rocket plane. Based on this wealth of experience, Storms persuaded NAA to form the Space and Information Systems in Downey, California and to make a serious bid for the contract to build the Apollo spacecraft which was ultimately succesful. Unfortunately, the Apollo 1 fire which took the lives of astronauts Grissom, White and Chaffee in 1967 tarnished the reputation of Storms and NAA and led to questioning whether NAA should have been given the contract at all, but based on the successes of the past, NAA was well qualified to build the spacecraft as the astronauts who were picked to fly it felt at the time.

The weakness of the book is that it seems to give full backing to Storms' contention that nothing at all was wrong with the way things were done at Downey. In fact, the books written by Mike Collins, Frank Borman and Chris Kraft point out that they were unhappy with NAA before the fire but the immense time pressure to get to the Moon before 1970 led people at NAA and NASA to sweep problems under the carpet until it was too late.

The most fascinating parts of the book describe the various technological challanges that had to be overcome in building the spacecraft, such as how Monte-Carlo methods were used to determine the "worst-case" scenarios the Command Module could encounter on landing in the ocean so that it could be designed to protect the astronauts, the packing of the landing parachutes which required compressing them in a vacuum chamber so that they could fit in a very small space, and the extreme weight limitations on the S-II second stage of the Saturn V moon rocket which required breakthroughs in many new manufacturing technologies and materials science.

I found this book to be very inspiring in showing how a vast team of talented people can come together and do something great.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Right Stuff with Engineers, August 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon (Paperback)

One of the most fascinating and enjoyable space program books yet written, and one that starts to suggest the unvarnished version of events, including the concept that, gosh, NASA might not be beyond reproach when it came to Apollo stumbles and friction. "Angle of Attack" is particularly fascinating for exploring the business and management aspects of bidding, designing, and actually building the Apollo spacecraft, something I have not found elsewhere in print. Other very good books, Apollo: Race to the Moon (Murray and Cox), and Man on the Moon (Chaikin) tell the NASA as hero, flight controller as hero, and astronaut as hero stories, but little is said about what it took to get from concept to built craft. Further, much of the NASA derived stories have a "contractors are just tinbenders" attitude that not only is conspicuously self-serving to NASA, but shelters a whole lot of incredible effort from view. Having worked on large complex fast-track projects, having seen the bassackwards nature of demanding clients and the politics and the skirmishes, the messy environment of the mid-60's space program sure rings truer in this book than anything else I have read on the subject. This story exactly fits how large organizations and their people behave. And if you can find a more credible description of the political/media aspects of the Apollo 1 accident investigations, I'd like to see it. Some accuse Mike Gray of bias for telling North American's oral history rather than NASA's. I say it is for precisely that reason this is a valuable book. Read it, read the others, decide where the truth lies and how good of a guy Joe Shea is and all that on your own, but if you love the Apollo story, read this book.