Customer Reviews

First on the Moon: A Voyage With Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr.

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i'VE JUST FINISHED READING THIS BOOK FOR THE 100TH TIME, SINCE PURCHASING IT 10 YEARS AGO! Ihave always wanted to meet these men [Apollo 11] and this book helps me to know more --especially about Neil Armstrong! When I wrote Neil Armstrong back in 1987, he suggested this as the main book to read from the three Apollo 11 astros. Tells about their lives, the training, how being an astronaut affected them and personal lives, all leading upto, and to splashdown! This book deserves a 10 plus star rating! I'll probably read it another 100 times!

This was published in 1970, and consists largely of information obtained via the lucrative 'Life' magazine contract that began with the Mercury 7 astronauts. The book is mostly long passages of quotes from Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin, as well as others peripherally related to the mission (families, other astronauts, NASA officials, etc.) sequenced to fit into the defined chapters of the book. Ostensibly Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin are the 'authors' which is true to the extent that they provided the quotes that make up much of the book during interviews by 'Life', but the book was actually written by 'Life' employees.

Having said that, it is not a bad book, it is just very commercial and polished, with mostly a sanitized up close and personal view of the mission through the astronaut's eyes. In that regard, it is quite good: it does shed light on the lives of the three astronauts pre Apollo 11, and is particularly good in discussing background information on childhood, early flying careers, etc. It is particularly useful in relating information on Neil Armstrong, perhaps the most enigmatic of all the Apollo astronauts. That is the main strength of the book: it is a human interest story right out of 'Life' lengthened to 400 plus pages.

On the downside, the book tends to idealize the astronauts and NASA into supermen, and acts as if they have no faults. For this reason I recommend "Carrying the Fire", the superb book by Michael Collins for a true, unvarnished, insider's look at the astronauts and NASA. This book was obviously written immediately after Apollo 11 splashed down in July, 1969. For this reason, it is unable to really place Apollo in historical perspective as well as some of the more recent books have been able to. As for technical information, there really isn't a lot. Of course, that's not the focus of the book, either. The technical information that is presented is generally accurate and well explained, however.

Three stars overall. A good human interest story, but many subsequent books have done a better overall job of appraising Apollo 11 and it's impact.

This book is one of the most intriguing books on the Apollo 11 missions i have ever read, and i HIGHLY recommend it to anyone interested in the Apollo 11 mission

This book was published within months of the Apollo 11 flight. It tells its story as events are happening instead of as a history. That gives it a fresh view of events that is sometimes lacking in later Apollo books. First on the Moon stays safely within what NASA PR limits would allow in 1969-70 but that's not too bad a liability as long as you read it knowing it's a product of its time.

The book was put together from four main sources: transcripts of Apollo radio traffic, interviews with the crew and families, reporting by Life staff and narrative by the author-compilers. The narrative style is dated at times, but after a while you just read it in a 1969 mind-set. The un-self-conscious reporting provides a lot more context to the way the events were lived than most later books do. One astronaut's (Aldrin's?) family goes on a quick shopping trip during the flight. A son asks his mom about getting a boa constrictor from the pet-store. "Let's wait until your father comes home," is the reply. I'd recommend reading this before or after Mike Collins' excellent Carrying the Fire.

I've borrowed and read this book over and over again during my undergrad years which copy I think was a rare first edition of it. The book really was one of its kind in describing moon landing from the eyes of the people who live it. Read and be inspired.

There have been many great and wonderful books written about the Apollo Program over the last 20 years, and I have read and enjoyed most of them, but for me "First On The Moon" still stands out as THE BEST.

Like the Hunter Davies "Beatles" biography of the same era, it has the unique perspective of being a product of it's time. It does not offer a historical perspective on the Apollo 11 mission but instead offers a fresh and compelling view of the events unfolding for the first time. You can pick up the book at any page and it will draw you in to the excitement of the first moon landing attempt and will infect you with the sky's-the-limit optimism, and possibilities of the summer of sixty nine. The book is a well crafted and stylish chronicle of mans greatest adventure. It witnesses the events not just through the eyes of Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin, but also through the experiences of the technicians, the engineers, and even the bartenders that served up Moonlander cocktails on the Cocoa Beach strip.

Couple "First On The Moon" with Norman Mailers equally relevant "Moonfire" and you will have everything you need on Apollo 11, the rest are just history!