Customer Reviews

Apollo: The Epic Journey to the Moon

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I worked as an engineer on the Gemini and Apollo projects, with McDonnell in St. Louis and at the Cape, working for Boeing. I am an avid reader of space history, and feel qualified to comment.

I would therefore like to point out a few errors and discrepancies in the book which I found to be very irritating:

Pg. 63: (caption) The rocket identified is the facilities test vehicle, AS-500F, not AS-504.

Pg. 69: There is no such thing as "fuel cell batteries"; they were either fuel cells OR
batteries.

(caption) The official crew designation was Lunar Module Pilot (LMP), not Lunar Module Co-pilot (even on flights where there was no LM).

Pg. 79: (caption) As evidenced by the high sun angle, this photo was taken several hours after sunrise.

Pg. 82: I don't think the rocket's tanks were at a very high pressure; that was the purpose
of the fuel and oxidizer pumps.

The diameter of the "internal brain" (and the S-IVB third stage) was 22 feet, not
30.

Pg. 89: Identifying captions for the liquid hydrogen lines and the oxygen tank are
reversed.

Pg. 92: AS-501 was the rocket for Apollo 4, not AS-504 (2 places)

Pg. 94: The diameter of the first and second stages was 33 feet, not 36.

The CSM was built in California, not Washington

The actual term used was "turning basin", not "turn basin".

The CSM and LM were trucked from the landing strip to the MSOB, not the
VAB. See photo on pg. 116.

Pg. 95: The actual term used was "turning basin", not "turn basin".

Pg. 96: There were only 3 active firing rooms in the LCC during Apollo, not 4.

The actual term used was "turning basin", not "turn basin".

Pg. 99: (caption) I don't think that is Mr. Wendt; G.W. wore heavy glasses. (See pg.
130.) He also spells his name "Guenter".

Pg. 100: Apollo 8 was beginning its arc toward orbital velocity, not escape velocity.
Escape velocity came several hours later.

The center of gravity shifted as the fuel was consumed, not as the engines moved.

Pg. 102: The Apollo countdown began about 4 days before launch, not 28 hours.

There were many more than 15 television display screens in the LCC firing room;
check the photo on page 132.

Pg. 105: Apollo 8 entered orbit behind the moon; they didn't enter orbit and then prepare
to travel around the far side.

Pg. 130: (caption) Mr. Wendt spells his name "Guenter", not "Gunter".

Pg. 146: Armstrong has admitted he never said "...for a man". That is what he intended,
but he left out the "a". This is quite obvious if you listen to the radio
transmission.

Pg. 166: The astronauts breathed pure oxygen, not air.

Pg. 182: The LM atmosphere was pure oxygen, not air.

Pg. 207: (caption) According to the photo on pg. 225, Apollo 15 landed farther away from
the visible center than Apollo 17 did.

Pg. 214: The CSM atmosphere was pure oxygen, not air.

Pg. 217: The yellow line should be identified as "re-entry trajectory", not "launch
trajectory".

Pg. 242: The Orbital Workshop atmosphere was to be pure oxygen, not air.

Pg. 253: I assume the scale on the right side represents meters; it should be so stated.

General: Many terms are abbreviated (V.A.B., C.S.M., etc.) when in fact they were not written that way. We used VAB, CSM, KSC, etc. Oddly enough, LM seems to be the only one written correctly in the book.

There are many references to the LM's "cockpit stage". While this is where the cockpit was located, the correct term is "ascent stage". I never heard the term "cockpit stage" used.

Despite all these comments, I really enjoyed the text and the photos. The book also introduced me to some interesting websites I had not seen before.

I just received an advance copy of "Apollo: The Epic Journey to the Moon" by David Reynolds (Tehabi Books, San Diego). It's really, by far, one of the most spectacular visual histories of the Apollo program I've ever seen. 272 pp, hundreds of full-color illustrations, including several fold-out pages (such as a four-page fold-out cutaway of the Saturn V), and an authoritative text, the book is a gorgeous package. Unlike most other histories of the program, "Apollo" discusses the lunar landings within the larger social and scientific context. In fact, the first 100 pages are devoted to the events that led up to Apollo, including a beautifully illustrated history of rocketry and space exploration (featuring 6 pages on the Collier's series, with full-color Bonestell art, and the Disney TV space shows). There is a section on the origins and geology of the moon--with great specially-commissioned diagrams--and several pages about the Soviet moon program.

All in all a spectacular volume that I cannot recommend too highly.

There have been many colourful large format books on the Apollo missions published over the years, and by now most of them must have made their way to the secondhand stalls, but David West Reynolds' book is sure to became a treasured momento. In addition to a lucid and very informative commentary, it contains carefully drawn illustrations and exquisitely produced pictures, including some specifically assembled lunar panoramas. It is like Michael Light's 'Full Moon', but in colour!

The quest to reach the moon was indeed an epic journey involving, as I learned, hundreds of thousands of men and women to make the dream a reality. As a person not previously acquainted with the lengthy cast of characters responsible for taking this idea from drawing board to reality, I nevertheless found this account to be readily accessible and extremely engaging. The author has clearly taken pains to distill volumes of research down to a flowing narrative that reveals insights into the lives of those behind the scenes, as well as the astronauts themselves, who worked tirelessly to achieve their goal of landing a man on the moon. The beautiful illustrations and breathtaking photographs will not be lost on anyone, but do not overlook the useful descriptions of scientific hardware relayed in laymans terms, which are, thankfully, free of scientific lingo that only an engineer could love, or at least understand. I found particularly interesting the final section of the book, which describes planned future missions of the Apollo program that never came to pass. While the public in the 1970s may have lost interest in such missions, the public in the 21st century can only look back with envy. The fascinating explorations that would have been so easy to undertake decades ago, today seem impossible to imagine for decades to come. Thanks to this book, however, the reader can relive for a time the sense of wonder and excitement that surrounded this epic journey. We can only hope that one day we can continue the voyage of discovery where the previous generation left off.

I am a space nerd - majored in space physics, minored in space studies, worked in the space industry. Am enthralled with the Apollo program and have studied it extensively. This book does have a few minor errors, but they in no way detract from the thorough examination of the Apollo program. The book is worth its weight in charts, maps, diagrams and photographs alone. For example, I had never seen maps of the tracks of where each Apollo mission did its EVAs on the moon.

I refute the claim that this book is aimed at children - I doubt any standard kid would understand Delta V and Isp and hypergolic fuels and translunar insertions. I think having a background in rocketry helped me enjoy the book more, not less.

Sheesh! These 'rivet-counters' below just don't know how to enjoy a good book. I love this book: it's a great read, and the range of photographs and illustrations are terrific! I especially like the foldout of the Saturn V rocket, which has been completely reillustrated. Don't let these nitpickers discourage you. They don't know what they're missing--it's called the forest, not a few debatably knotted trees.

If you are wondering if there are any pictures, diagrams or info from the Apollo program that we haven't seen yet, the answer is in this book: and the answer is yes,and then some! I agree with the other reviews. This book is beautiful visually and informatively. So glad that it was published. We need to keep showing the world what we did, and why we should still be doing it, with books like this. Thanks Mr. Reynolds!

What none of the reviews so far have mentioned is that this is essentially a book aimed at children. That should be obvious from Reynolds previous books, all of which have been Star Wars books with lots of illustrations and two of which are "pocket" books less than 30 pages long. Although the dust jacket trumpets Reynolds previous books, mentioning that one was a best-seller, and refers to his Ph.D., this is all misleading. Reynolds' experience is writing illustrated childrens' fiction books, not history. This book is not intended to be an accurate or comprehensive history of Apollo, but a picture book for the early teen market.

The book is beautifully illustrated. Some of the artwork is excellent, and the labels are designed to be clearly understandable. The photographs are also quite good, and the author deserves much credit for using dramatic photos that have not been used in other books before. If all you are going to do is look at the photos, then this is a really good book.

The text, however, leaves a lot to be desired. Often the style is one of outright cheerleading and hero-worship rather than objective history. The author does not provide a balanced critique of the Apollo program. John F. Kennedy and Wernher von Braun are brave and unvarnished heroes in this book. The problem is that this portrayal distorts reality. Von Braun, for instance, was only one of many influential people involved in the Apollo program and was not necessarily the most important engineer. Most of the work he did on the Saturn rocket was bureaucratic, not engineering. And by focusing too much on him, Reynolds detracts from the many other people who had significant impacts on the space program, such as Robert Gilruth, George Mueller, Abe Silverstein and even NASA Administrator James Webb. Similarly, Kennedy pursued Apollo solely to beat the Russians, and was never enthusiastic about space.

There are also errors that indicate that Reynolds got most of his information from other books and not original research--and that he did not get anyone to fact-check his work. Some of the mistakes are not merely minor errors, but serious distortions of what happened. Take, for instance, the claim that it was a Disney space film that led President Eisenhower to start the scientific satellite program (pgs. 30-33). There is absolutely no evidence that Eisenhower even watched that program or requested a copy for the White House. And the claim that 100 million people watched it is also unsupported. Reynolds apparently got his story from the book Blueprint for Space. If he had looked at other more recent books, like Howard McCurdys Space and the American Imagination, or had talked to the relevant people in the history field, he would have learned that this story was false. Similarly, he also claims that President Eisenhower specifically forbade the Germans from launching Missile 29 to orbit. There is no evidence to support this claim, and other space historians, like Michael Neufeld, have explained that this missile was never capable of reaching orbit at that time (for instance, it had no guidance system). There are numerous other mistakes and omissions, but one gets the sense that the author was not about to let the facts get in the way of a good story.

The book is only around 270 pages long, with over half of those pages taken up by photographs and illustrations. There is no way that such a short book could be the "best" or "most accurate" or "most comprehensive" history of a space program that spanned more than a decade and used the equivalent of over $180 billion in today's money. This is a book aimed at the early teen market, not the serious space reader.

In summary, the book is fun to look at, but unfortunately will give children inaccurate information about the Apollo program. At a time when space enthusiasts get enraged that some people claim that the moon landings were faked, one wonders why they so enthusiastically embrace books that get the history wrong.

[UPDATE as of Dec 2, 2002: I just noted in another review of this book that the journal Choice named this book as one its Outstanding Academic Titles of the Year for 2002. As a practicing librarian who reviewed space history titles for seventeen years, I find it regrettable that a book as riddled with as many errors as this one should receive such an award from such a prestigious journal. I can only hope that the publisher furnish an errata sheet to the libraries holding this title.]

Reynolds's Apollo book is beautifully printed to be sure (I'm especially fond of the double gatefold rendering of the venerable Saturn V) and his enthusiasm for his subject clearly shows. Unfortunately, this same enthusiasm apparently stands in the way of his getting many of the facts straight--a vitally important task for any book purporting to provide the reader with an accurate history of any subject.

There are numerous misidentifications and inaccuracies in the captions and the text; e.g., there is a particularly irritating series of mis-identifications of the Saturn 500-F Facilities Test Vehicle--a non-flight mockup--which he confuses with other Saturn launch vehicles. Beginning on page 63, it is mis- identified as AS-504 (which was actually Apollo 9's launch vehicle), then on page 92 AS-504 it is referred to as Apollo 4, when that mission's Saturn V was actually AS-501. On page 86, he finally gets it right and identifies 500-F correctly. And, for what it's worth, the first Saturn V was launched in 1967, not 1968 (page 253). Needlessly irritating all around.

Similarly on page 94, Reynolds states that the Super Guppy air transport plane landed Saturn S-IVB stages on an airstrip "near the Vehicle Assembly Building". The map on the accompanying page also identifies the airstrip as the "NASA airstrip Super Guppy landing area." But this is incorrect. He confuses the Skid Strip located to the south at Cape Canaveral proper, where the Super Guppy did in fact land in the '60s, with the Shuttle Landing Facility, which didn't even exist until the late 1970s.

This all may sound like nitpicking, but the accuracy of the historical record is essential to maintain in books like this, especially as new generations study the history of Apollo.

Examples of more substantive historical lapses include Reynolds's assertion that the 1955 Walt Disney "Man in Space" television programs so excited President Eisenhower that Ike personally called Disney for a copy of the shows so his staff and the Pentagon could review them (page 33). This assertion is undocumented and is highly unlikely to have happened--nothing in the historical record indicates that Eisenhower had any interest in space exploration whatsoever, unless it was directly connected to the national defense. To suggest that US space policy had its beginning because Ike and Mamie were watching a TV show strains credulity.

Finally, one last example: The author mis-quotes Astronaut Wally Schirra on the occasion of the Gemini 6 pad abort. Reynolds has Schirra saying "We're just sitting here bleeding" when in fact Schirra said "We're just sitting here breathing", a difference that completely changes the complexion of the situation and the astronauts' demeanor in this life-or-death situation.

Clearly this book fails the accuracy test. It is a shame that such a handsome book should be marred by errors that could have been easily caught by any knowledgeable copy editor.

But to give the author credit where it is due, Reynolds is to be lauded for his inclusion of the Apollo Applications Program story--an under-studied and, unfortunately, largely forgotten, aspect of the hey day of manned space exploration. As the author explains, AAP was a separate follow-on program to the Apollo moon landing missions that was to have utilized Saturn/Apollo hardware for extended lunar stays of up to two weeks and longer as well as for earth orbiting space stations. The decline in public support for manned space flight and consequent downturn in NASA's budget in the late '60s consigned these advanced missions to the drawing boards (except for Skylab) and resulted in the abandonment of the Saturn launch vehicles and Apollo spacecraft--a short-sighted and wasteful decision considering all the money spent on the development of this hardware.

Despite all this book's flaws, Reynolds does well to remind today's generation that Apollo was cut short before it reached its full potential. Perhaps armed with that knowledge, we will someday find the inspiration to return to the moon.

A visual gem; this book is one that even those with just a passing interest in space history would enjoy. In addition to the numerous photos, the text is extremely cogent and well written. It covers all major aspects of the apollo program in a highly informative and entertaining manner. The book is of a very high quality and will not disappoint.