Customer Reviews

The Man Who Ran the Moon: James E. Webb, NASA, and the Secret History of Project Apollo

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This long overdue biography of Jim Webb fills a needed void in the literature of the Apollo program. Webb, a disarming but astute partisan Democrat from North Carolina ran NASA during the crucial years leading up to the Apollo program. This book not only details his personal life, but the wheeling and dealing that went on behind the scenes in Washington to get to the moon.

Nobody doubts that Webb was brilliant, but Webb was not without flaws. He was totally infatuated with Roosevelt-era New Deal big government, and ran NASA accordingly, sometimes to the detriment of the program. He adopted the mantra of "Space Age Management" and took it to mean a giant, monolithic government run program straight from FDR's playbook. I think the book does a great job explaining Webb's less than savory relationships to politicians and others of questionable ethics in both the Kennedy and (especially) Johnson administrations such as Bobby Baker. It also recalls a less than savory battle with fellow Democrat and political climber, Walter Mondale, that exposes Washington political opportunism at its worst. I rate the book four stars as the book tends to downplay the significance of ethically borderline issues that occurred in Webb's tenure. To the credit of the book, Bizony does correctly point out that Kennedy was not the true champion of space he is revered to be today, but saw space exploration as a politically expedient course to follow, as did Johnson.

On the plus side, the author absolutely nails the deplorable history of NASA since Apollo and presents an accurate and devastating portrait of the Shuttle and International Space Station programs. Mr. Bizony correctly identifies the root cause of the problems in both programs as an unholy alliance of political objectives and unfocused technology. Webb's stature rose significantly in my eyes when I read Bizony's account of the hostility Webb had for Robert McNamara, another big government technocrat, but one without the vision of either Kennedy or Webb. NASA veteran Bob Seamans comes off as a much needed moderating force within the administration, and this book also details the fascinating relationship between Seamans and Webb.

Overall this is a noteworthy book. While it occasionally seems to come off the rails and get sidetracked, Piers Bizony always manages to tie up loose ends, resulting in a detailed and historically important book. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the space program, and further to students of management to learn not only the successes, but failures of the biggest single peacetime logistical puzzle in history.

With "The Man Who Ran the Moon: James E. Webb, NASA, and the Secret History of Project Apollo" Piers Bizony has written a wide ranging history about the business side of getting man on the moon. While many books focus on the astronauts and some focus on engineering, this book covers the political side of space flight. There are times when the author sounds as though he is losing his perspective as a historian/biographer and begins to expound on the virtues of the democratic party (Jim Webb was a lifelong Democrat) but after a few quick barbs about how things could be better today if we only learned from our past he rapidly gets back to the subject at hand.

The book does an excellent job of explaining John F. Kennedy and how he got behind the space program. The reader will see how without the soviets the American leadership would have never made space a priority. The "race" with the Russians has been well documented but this book goes deep into the American political system and how our government reacted to the race. The reader will see the give and take in Washington and how Webb spread the money around the country both in ways to gain political favor for the space program and in ways that made the most sense from a management position. Also covered is a fascinating meeting at the White House where Webb and JFK get into an argument over what the main goal of NASA should be and we see Webb not back down to the President of the United States.

The author goes to great lengths to explain the fall of Jim Webb and many pages are devoted to explaining the big political picture of lobbyist Fred B. Black, Jr. and LBJ protégé Robert "Bobby" Baker. While at times the reader may find themselves wondering what any of this has to do with Webb and NASA, all becomes clear in the end and the reader is rewarded with the knowledge and understanding of how something as simple as vending machines can start a series of events that will lead to the fall of a powerful man.

The selection of North American Aviation for construction of many parts of the rocket and capsule are covered as well as the fallout from the Apollo 1 fire. The Walter "Fritz" Mondale vs. Webb fight in the congressional investigations into the Apollo 1 fire are also well covered.

Overall this is an excellent book and is one that all space flight enthusiasts will want to add to their collection. I highly recommend it.

The story of the political battles and management difficulties of the Apollo program has gotten short shrift in the overwhelming coverage of the technical aspects. This is quite understandable, but books like this are essential to covering the history of Apollo.

Regrettably, the wanderings into the personal politics and biases of the author caused me to suspect how much he might have covered up or eliminated as a historian, for personal reasons. For example, to blame the defunding of the Apollo program on the Nixon administration is extremely disingenuous, considering it was a Democratic Congress that refused to allocate the funds, preferring instead to shift the money to "problems here on Earth."

Similar issues throughout make this a history that needs to be approached with caution. For a reader knowledgeable of the real politics of the time, I'd give it 4 stars.

This is a great book in the sense that it is giving insights into the the political side of how Apollo (plus Gemini and the NASA centers) were run. There are a multitude of fine technical books on the manned space program so this one does a great job of filling the gap on the political and management side of the house.

What was a bit unsettling is how the author's personal politics kept popping up time and time again. After the tenth (and twentieth) time reading it, I was pretty sure that Webb was a Democratic who believed in the New Deal ideals that Roosevelt initiated. In summary, Democrats are good, Republicans are bad, and New Deal Dems are the best. That message came through loud and clear. Like the reviewer below, I wondered too if there were any errors of omission so that the author could paint history to best suit his personal views. As long as you keep that in mind, this book does deliver information not found in the standard Apollo histories.

One amusing part where the book shows how times have changed in the few years since it was written is when Webb is going to Congress to get the funding and he asks for $20B. The author has a footnote where he says that $20B may not seem like a lot of money today, but adjusted for inflation Apollo would be like asking for $140B in 2006 dollars. After the recent bank bailouts and TARP funds, $140B for a technological leap like Apollo seems like a bargain.

When you hear of the manned space programme or the first lunar landing of Apollo 11 you think of the astronauts who went there and the engineers who built the vehicles in which they went. But even as a space enthusiast I rarely spend a thought about the people in the background who administered the biggest engineering programme ever. Yet as the book reveals there was a lot of important work to do behind the scenes. Fascinating insights into the world of high profile public administration are given in the book that stand up to the excitement of space walks and lunar landings. The book is also excellent in unravelling the complexity of running NASA and the deeper insights into the Apollo fire. All in all a brillant and - surprisingly - entertaining book, not just for the space freak.

Readers will find little new in "The Man Who Ran the Moon", although its focus on an often-overlooked but central figure in the Apollo program - NASA Administrator James Webb - is a welcome supplement to the popular histories of the era. Webb's views on the organization and management of the newborn agency are almost as interesting as his political dealings through the 1960s. The complex interplay between aerospace contractors and the Federal government is also given more exposure than conventional in popular texts.

A quick and easy read, "The Man Who Ran the Moon" is a worthwhile diversion for anyone interested in the history of NASA as an organization or the Apollo program itself, as well as public administration in general and Cold War-era beliefs about technocracies and their role in society.

I was truly hoping for more from this. There have been a lot of biographies in recent years on important individuals in the early Nasa years. In most of them James Webb is almost a shadow as he was an administrator and wasn't involved in the day to day operations of the astronauts and engineers. Webb's world however was still extremely important as it was he who dealt with the important political and administrative side of Nasa through the 60s. The problem with this book however is largely that the author is more interested in writing a book on politics than a biography of James Webb.

The problems with this book start early on. An example of the author's lack of interest in writing an actual biography comes in covering Webb coming from Oklahoma where he worked in the oil industry to Washington DC. It mentions that Webb was wanted in Washington in part due to his experience in the the field of law. The problem is that up to that point in the book the author has never mentioned once that Webb had any experience in law. I actually went back at this point in the book and tried to find mention of this but there is none. In fact the author doesn't even mention where Webb went to college or what he majored in. We literally go from Webb as a teen doing normal small town jobs to him being a pilot flying with Ivy leaguers in one paragraph. This is done in such a general way so we don't even really find out anything like what planes he flew.

It's very clear at this point that the author has done little actual research on Webb's life prior to Nasa. The book just hops from point to point with little connection between some of the sections. The author is simply interested in specific political moments in the history of Nasa in the 1960s and that is all he really wants to talk about. Webb throughout the book feels almost like a tool to get from one political or administrative battle to another.

Another problem throughout the book is the author's own political bias. Most of the time it's just a touch annoying but at times it's overpowering. Early on in the book for example he describes how Webb was a Democrat. He then waxes on for half a page about Webb being a Democrat because of all the wonderful things that the Democratic party believes in. This happens off and on throughout the entire book. It's a constant a distraction as here you are reading about something and suddenly the author goes off again repeating about how wonderful the Democrats are and how short sited Republicans are. He doesn't do a very good job of hiding what he is doing either. It leaves you with the feeling that the author doesn't credit his reader with being smart enough to recognize what he's doing.

In the end I have the feeling the author wanted to strictly write a book about the politics of Nasa and the space program in the 1960s. I have a feeling he was sidetracked by the publisher into making it a biography as they tend to be higher profile in this area and higher profile means more sales. Unfortunate as I think if it was approached strictly as a book on the administrative and political world of Nasa in the 1960s it would have been a pretty good book. As it is we're left with a book that is half of one thing, half of another and not very good at being either.

Although Bizney's writing style is a little informal and sometimes grammatically wrong, the book is great in itself is great!

We've all read about the astronauts who made it to the moon and their stories. We've all read about the spacecraft that were used, but no one has really said much about how it was all put together.

Bizney writes about James E. Webb, the director of NASA at the time of Mercury, Gemini, and part of Apollo. He talks about all of the politicking that went into the space program, the struggles that went on behind the scenes and the flaws that almost ground Apollo before it even began. He discusses the problems with contractors and how the capsule and Saturn V were flawed at the start of the program, but eventually fixed.

This is a great read for anyone who is as much of a space nerd as I am and for anyone who wants to know how NASA works behind the scenes.

At last its good to find a book which covers the politics behind any large government organisation, and especially one as large as NASA. This book complements the huge number of technology offerings on the early days of spaceflight, and then to the moon. It was interesting to see how NASA went through the various phases of an entrepreneurial company, and almost distructing, before re-inventing itself several times over.

Mr Bizony has made a good effort in trying to distill a large period of time and a number of memorable events into a readable volume without getting too sidetracked in the huge undetaking of man going to the moon.

I have found this a good contrast to the Robert Godwin Apollo Mission Reports.

Piers Bizony recreates the great drama of America's drive for the moon during the 1960s. He takes us behind the scenes to tell the story of a little known organizational genius named James Webb who had as much to do with the final triumph as Neil Armstrong.

Reads like a detective story and builds to a crescendo. Anyone who is nostalgic about the Apollo story will love this book.