Behind the Race to the Moon
Written: May 14 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Incredible story of people who designed and built the Apollo spacecraft
Cons: Nothing about Gemini program
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| drose's Full Review: Mike Gray - Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and t... |
If you were alive and aware in 1969, you probably remember Apollo 11 landing on the moon. But who actually designed and built the spacecraft that made that incredible journey? The answer may surprise you.
If you're like me, you probably thought the answer was NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA was the government agency that ran the space program, and they certainly did a lot. But most of the actual design and construction was done not by NASA, but of several large commercial contractors, primarily North American Aviation (now Rockwell International). Their efforts are described in Mike Gray's fascinating book "Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon."
"Angle of Attack" tells the story of how Harrison Storms, an aeronautical engineer, eventually came to direct a team of nearly 30,000 people at North American responsible for figuring out how to get three people safely to the moon and back. While NASA gave general specifications about some of the major issues -- such as how many stages the rocket would have (3), or whether the pieces of the lunar spacecraft should be ferried up to earth orbit and assembled there (no), it was the North American engineers who actually had to come up with a plan to make the thing work. And in one of the few cases where NASA imposed its own design decisions on specific aspects of the spacecraft -- the use of pressurized pure oxygen in the cabin -- the results were catastrophic.
In addition to looking at the technological and management hurdles that Storms and his team had to overcome, Gray also shows us the toll this effort took on the engineers and their families, and the political machinations that destroyed the careers of some of the space program's true heroes.
My only quibble about the book is that the author totally ignored the Gemini project, the pre-Apollo program in which they figured out how to rendezvous and dock in space. But since the book focuses on Apollo and on the North American Aviation effort in particular, this lapse is forgivable.
If you're a space buff or an engineer, or even if you just liked the movie "Apollo 13" (or the book "Lost Moon" on which it was based), you're sure to like "Angle of Attack."
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
drose
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Reviews written: 53
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