Rocket Men

The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon

De: Craig Nelson

Narrado por: Richard McGonagle

"Celebrates a bold era when voyaging beyond the Earth was deemed crucial to national security and pride."
-The Wall Street Journal

Restoring the drama, majesty, and sheer improbability of an American triumph, this is award-winning historian Craig Nelson's definitive and thrilling story of man's first trip to the moon. At 9:32 a.m. on July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 rocket launched in the presence of more than a million spectators who had gathered to witness a truly historic event. Through interviews, 23,000 pages of NASA oral histories, and declassified CIA documents on the space race, Rocket Men presents a vivid narrative of the moon mission, taking readers on the journey to one of the last frontiers of the human imagination.©2009 Craig Nelson; (P)2009 Penguin

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Celebrates a bold era when voyaging beyond the Earth was deemed crucial to national security and pride." -The Wall Street Journal

"Spectacular."-Vanity Fair

Outstanding

The best narrative of the Apollo missions I ever heard or read. Spell-binding even though you know how it turns out.

A+ If You're A Space Groupie

Would you consider the audio edition of Rocket Men to be better than the print version?

I don't knows since I read technical stuff.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Rocket Men?

Of course Apollo 11 is the most memorable. While the book essentially starts with the launch of the moon-landing mission, it digresses a number of times to cover tangential elements, facts, and stories. Deciding the most memorable moment is like deciding the most memorial moment of you child’s birth.

Great book

Very informative with a good narrator. The story is well structured and has plenty of value to read multiple times.

Nice history marred by technical mistakes

The history of the Apollo program is fascinating. However the story was let down somewhat by technical mistakes (confusion of orbital velocity with escape velocity, garbled description of max-Q, etc.) The ending, discussing the status of the space program, is also a bit dated. But overall a worthwhile listen.

TRULY OUTSTANDING

There are many books on the space program but this one captures the heart and soul and takes you there!

I get a peculiar reaction to really great outstanding books, I pace back and forth. my enthusiasm, and wonder overflows my inner cup and I'm simply yet ecstatically overwhelmed. needless to say this listen fits into that coveted category.

What an amazingly unique challenge this was for mankind! What an adventure the whole planet held its breath for. All of those enormous probably catastrophic risks laid out on live tv. For many it was before their time, for others its grandeur forgotten, and for everyone, the behind the scenes opera never known till now

So this book is very special because it succeeds in translating all that forgotten glory that was in the public eye and more importantly most of which was kept secret .

It is SO well researched and written ,providing a more than complete history that reads like a thriller. Whether your interested in the space program or not you will find this an amazing experience.

Very Enjoyable Book

I have read other Apollo/NASA books but this one stands on its own. Really enjoyed the discussion of the "space race" and the engineering feats it took to take the US to the Moon first. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in what it took to get to the Moon.

I really love this book...

I really, really love this book. I have read it and reread many parts over and over, boy, this is great. I will refer back to this book many times and reread it again and again. I was project engineer for 22-years on the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Motors and wish had I had known this much about the whole program. I knew a lot of this stuff but not all of it in the detail that this book covers. Wow, what a great read.

This is a beautiful, self-contained "course" on the early space program.

So entertainingly and interestingly told, it reminds me of a conductor-friend who said, about a pop singer, "It can't be "good", because it's too "catchy"!
While entirely educational, Rocket Men is so interesting and fun, you don't notice you're learning about the whole era of early space travel!

Great for Space Nuts

If you're a space nut this is the book for you. However, even for a space nut like me I only gave it 4 stars. The main reason is the many annoying inaccuracies - like constantly calling the moon a planet! Even with these problems the book does provide a lot of detail about the race to the moon. Probably too much detail for somebody with just a passing interest.

Quite a reality check!

I was totally obsessed with the space program during the time of Apollo and thought I knew everything about it and NASA. This fascinating book and very good narration reveals the real story of the politics involved during the space race and gives the feeling of being present behind the scenes during the critical parts of the space program and the moon landing. It was a true reality check as most of what I believed to be true was the sanitized version allowed out to the media. I had always thought of Kennedy as the main promoter of the space program. I discovered, to my surprise, that Lyndon Johnson was more knowledgable and the program's primary champion and Kennedy had many reservations about it. Much of the information in this book was revealed by the release of classified and suppressed data that was not available in prior years. That, and the personal anecdotes and conversations of the astronauts and ground crew held me spellbound.