Just finished reading Robert Kurson's "Rocket Men" (The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the astronauts who made man's first journey to the moon). The book was published earlier this year (336 pages, exclusive of acknowledgements, notes & index). Strange to say that while I've never had much interest in our country's space program - never even watched the Apollo 13 movie with Tom Hanks and preferred reading about the Wright Brothers, Lindbergh, etc. - I enjoyed reading this book. OK, there were some technical descriptions about g-forces, etc. that were way over my head. But they weren't anywhere near being an overwhelming part of the book. If they were my brain would have fogged over and I would have stopped reading. I admire the courage of the men who manned these space ships since I sure wouldn't have volunteered. The crew members were Frank Borman, Bill Anders and Jim Lovell. The book also covers their wives and children, how they were affected, and personnel in mission control.
Before I began reading, the only space program recollection I had was of Apollo 11. The crew of Apollo 11 was Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin. Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the lunar surface while Collins remained in orbit around the moon. I still have a Stars & Stripes newspaper, Vol. 25, No. 203, of Wednesday, July 23, 1969. The headline read "It's Hail Columbia! Linkup Completed. Lunar Liftoff Is 'Beautiful'. The last moon landing was in 1972. I didn't know that the Apollo 8 flight, between December 21 and December 27, 1968, was the first manned space mission to the moon. These rocket men orbited the moon on Christmas Eve but did not land.
The last chapter before the epilogue is titled "The Men Who Saved 1968". The Kurson book reminds us that 1968 was a bad year - the assassinations of Martin Luther King (April 4th) and Robert Kennedy (June 5th), the year in which U.S. suffered the most casualties in Vietnam (see below) due in part to the Tet Offensive, conflicts between Vietnam war protesters, civil rights protesters and police, etc. The success of the Apollo 8 crew ended the year on an up note.
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