Millions around the world watched as the Apollo 11 astronauts "came in peace for all mankind" to take humanity's first steps on the moon. Their mission's triumph was equally attributable to a less visible crew of nearly 400,000 people in hundreds of different organizations. This official NASA history reveals the human story behind an epic achievement. Written by a trio of experts, it chronicles the engineering and management contributions to the success of Project Apollo, starting with the creation of NASA itself and tracing the design and development of the project's spacecraft and lunar vehicles as well as their operation in space.
Refreshingly free of jargon and technical language, this accessible account focuses on the coordination of efforts behind the production of the Apollo service, command, and lunar modules. It covers three phases of spacecraft evolution: defining and designing the necessary vehicles; developing and qualifying them for the task; and operating them to achieve their objectives. The authors conducted numerous interviews with the project's participants and relied heavily on NASA's extensive archives. In addition to several appendixes, the text is supplemented with more than 100 photographs and illustrations that recapture the efforts of the dedicated team of thousands who reached for the moon.