Apollo

By: Charles Murray, Catherine Bly Cox

Narrated by: Bob Souer

Length: 18 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

Apollo is the behind-the-scenes story of an epic achievement. Based on exhaustive research that included many exclusive interviews, Apollo tells how America went from a standing start to a landing on the moon at a speed that now seems impossible. It describes the unprecedented engineering challenges that had to be overcome to create the mammoth Saturn V and the facilities to launch it. It takes you onto the gantries at Cape Canaveral and behind the consoles of Houston's Mission Control as it relives the tragedy of the fire on Apollo 1, the first descent to the lunar surface, and the rescue of Apollo 13.

A story of daring bordering on recklessness on the ground and life-and-death decisions made in seconds during the flights, Apollo captures the drama of humans leaving Earth for the first time.

©2004 Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Best book ever for space, ops, and engineering fans

I’ve spent my career at NASA, and I wish I had read this book early in my career and again every few years. Such an amazing account of decisions, personalities, engineering challenges, flight control - with all of the things that are important to me about how things transpired. I’ve been on the edge of my seat for so many chapters, and had to rewind if I missed anything. I’m making this mandatory reading for my engineering teams!

Breathtaking

Absolutely incredible, inspiring narrative. informative, but not dry. Great Narration too. I cannot express enough how amazing the story of the Apollo Program is. The problems they overcame, to include time constraints and dealing with designing such a dangerous program relatively safely from the ground up... I cannot recommend this enough. Please. Give it a listen.

Greatest text written on the US space race.

As a kid who grew up in the late 50s through the end of Apollo, I've read every book I could get my hands on about the US space race. I was 16 when the world was changed when Neil Armstrong took the first step onto the surface of the moon. When you think about it, it's hard to describe how historic it was. The moon has looked the same from the time the very first human looked skyward to contemplate it. Humanity was in a new place as a result of astronauts walking on the moon, I'm sure a lot of people remember looking up at the moon thinking about the fact that there were people up there looking down at us.

This book is untouched by the other books written about Apollo. From the beginning of the space race with Mercury, then Gemini, and finally Apollo, the reader/listener follows the story, and because of expert authors, learns about the development of everything from the beginning and who made it all possible. Many of the famous names of Apollo are gone now, but the authors keep them alive in the listener's heart so that the listener feels that he knows many of the people personally.

The narrator, Bob Souer. makes me smile and react as he presents the material. If he isn't the greatest person ever to narrate a story, he's got to be in the top five. I'll look for more books just because he was so flawless at his job with Apollo.

If the reader wants THE book to learn about the development of NASA through the Apollo missions. and remembers being fascinated by the astronauts and people in Mission Control that we all saw on our screens (Gene Kranz and Chris Kraft among them), this book will bring it all back to life for you. If you're too young to remember Apollo, and you're interested in space flight, I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Great book, and if you don't fall for it like I did, I'll be absolutely stunned.

pretty unbelievable - and true !

amazing and true story. might just have to listen to it again immediately. in honor of the 50th anniversary I'd encourage any and all to consume this fantastic history.

great book, dry reading

This was an exceptional book, especially for those interested in the space program. It contains a great balance of personal storyline, politics, science/technology and management principles that accompanied our successes in the 60's. The reading, however, was quite dry and sterile, which is unfortunate given the conversational style of the text.

THE book to read about the Apollo Program

A story less about the astronauts, and more about the others, technicians, engineers and managers, who made Apollo not just possible, but a resounding success. My favorite book to read or to listen.

Awesome

I worked at NASA for 5 years in the 80s. The book recreates all the feelings that a NASA engineer experiences but at a much higher intensity.

Great book for anyone wanting the real history of Apollo and what it took to land a man in the moon.

a great about a great accomplishment

I really enjoyed listening to this audiobook about the manned moon missions. thru the years i had heard most of the stories before and met a couple of the key players but this is a compelling story about the people who made it happen, all together in one very nice package.

the narrator is very good for the technical nature of the book.

highly recommended.

Interesting - made me relive the excitement of my youth

This book was well researched with lots of facts and information yet spoke to the layman, but interested the technical as well. Good listen and held our attention.

behind the scenes in an amazing time of exploratio

fascinating for a boomer who grew up following the space program. It even gave background on Kennedy's speech, supporting the conclusion it is usually given too much emphasis. We were on the way already.