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Bezig met laden... Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon (2017)door Jeffrey Kluger
Macmillan Publishers (80) Bezig met laden...
Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. I watched First Man a couple of weeks ago, which tells the story of astronaut Neil Armstrong and the events leading up to the space mission that led him to walk on the moon. I enjoyed it, and I wanted to learn more about the space program as it actually was back in those days. Seeing as how the 60s were before my time, I found it fascinating to get a deeper look at the social impact that the space program had on the American people at the time. Unfortunately, I found APOLLO 8 fairly dull. I struggled to get through it, and found my thoughts drifting often as I flipped the pages. I frequently had to go back and re-read entire paragraphs, realizing my mind had wandered and I couldn't remember a thing I just read. I was hoping for a more engaging narrative, one that would make the subject matter come alive. It's such a fascinating time in history, yet in the retelling it loses its magic. The narrative bounces around from one event to another, from one person to another, with no link or continuity between them. This book reads like a "Just the facts, Ma'am" retelling of what went on. And while I have little doubt it's historically accurate, it lacks heart, drama, and emotional engagement. Maybe I should just stick to movies on the subject. I have read a lot about the early days of NASA. Some accounts, like Collins' Carrying the Fire, are deeply personal and immersive. Or the broad scope of Cernan's Last Man on the Moon. This book is more distanced, a measured account of what happened. Despite my foreknowledge, this book managed to include many a detail I had never read before, and never felt boring. In particular, I enjoyed the stories of the earlier Gemini and Mercury missions, that are so often overlooked in other books. Still, I would have preferred a somewhat more passionate delivery. But then, I did know the gist of the story already, and my experience might have been better if I hadn't. While books with a scientific base can have the potential to be lost with description of too much information, this isn't the case with Apollo 8. The excitement of the space program, its failures, and the overall happy feeling received when learning about the actual missions and the fact that today's computers are so much more powerful. Yet, the information learned from each journey to go to space, then to do what Apollo 8 did which was to circle the moon, and take photos of the beauty of the earth, spin back around the moon, to find the trajectory to bring them back home was mind boggling. When I thought of the real potential that the three astronauts to never return, to make one little slight error that would propel them out of either the moon or earth's orbit and to be suspended in space, constantly turning round and round, while there was notability to bring them back brought the reality of this very successful mission. My review could never begin to explain the overwhelming odds and courage it took to fly from earth, spin around the moon, called the transluner injectiion ignition, then slow enough to find the earth's obit that would bring them safely back to earth. The backdrop of what was happening in the United States in the year 1968 was filled with angust of the assignation of Marth Luther King, Jr. , the hatred of the continuation of the death of American soldiers in a war in Viet Nam that made no sense, the assignation of Robert Kennedy. There were riots in the streets throughout the United States and "Johnson's war" was a failure. Thus, when Frank Borman, commander of the space craft spoke from Apollo 8 in space on Christmas Eve was an incredible feat. As the writer notes, Borman's voice traveled across a quarter million miles of void. Bill Anders and Jim Lowell and Borman spent the day before Christmas doing experiments, taking pictures, firing the spacecraft engines around A photo appeared on the TV in living rooms throughout the United States of the lunar sunset. There was talk of how desolate the moon appeared, lonely, forbidding type existence of nothingness. Jim Lowell's voice could be heard in agreement of his same thoughts about the moon in agreeing with Borman, and adding "The moon is a vast loneliness up here in space is aew-inspirin, and makees you realize just what you have back home on earth!!!" Bill Anders was the crew member who took the stunning photos, seen for many years in all major magazines and newspapers. He noted that he was impressed with the start terrain, and that the terrain is stark. Highly recommended. Five Stars. Read this one, I don't think you will regret it./b> geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
Recounts the bold but dangerous mission to secure America's position as the first nation to reach the moon, revealing the dangers endured by its crew and the ways the mission brought renewal to a country ravaged by assassinations and war. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
Deelnemer aan LibraryThing Vroege RecensentenJeffrey Kluger's boek Apollo 8 was beschikbaar via LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Actuele discussiesGeenPopulaire omslagen
Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)629.45Technology Engineering and allied operations Other Branches Astronauts and Space Travel Manned space flightLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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This is a very readable account of the mission, and one that captures some of that thrill... or at least, it did for me, but I am admittedly an easy sell on this stuff. It is perhaps not quite as detailed as one might expect for a book devoted solely to this one mission, but in fact, it covers a lot more ground than just Apollo 8 itself, which doesn't begin until maybe a third of the way through the book, after a thorough biography of mission commander Frank Borman and a discussion of the most relevant of the Gemini and the previous Apollo missions. I'd also say there's considerably more emphasis on the people than on the hardware, keeping things relatively light on the technical details, although when it does come up, all of the scientific and technical stuff is certainly explained clearly enough.
If you're interested in reading about the Apollo program in general, I always recommend Andrew Chaikin's A Man on the Moon first and foremost, and I very much recommend Lost Moon, as well. But it's nice to see the first of the moon shots getting some love, and I'd say even those with even a casual interest in the subject could do much worse than to pick this one up. ( )