Houston, We Have A Problem: There are no more Apollo books in the Library!

As it is with most things, it was all my parent's fault. ;D Last October they took me and Alison to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Seeing all the Apollo stuff there (authentic Saturn 5, Apollo 16 command module, more rockets, and more) got me and Alison both really excited about the Apollo program and outer space in general.

So. That said, when we were at the Space Center, Mom bought a book for me entitled The Last Man on the Moon by Gene Cernan, who was in fact the last man on the moon, on the crew of Apollo 17. I devoured the 348-page book in only a couple days!

Then...whenever I'd see a space/Apollo book I wanted to read/buy, Mom would say, "You should look in the library". Ok. But I never seemed to GET to the library! But in late January of this year, Mom made the grave mistake of letting me loose in our public library! ;) I found a whole stack of library books I wanted to read!
 At least half of the books I checked out were on the Apollo program.

So....for the past 3 1/2 months or so I've been excitedly reading 9 space books, all but one on Apollo. That figure includes the Last Man on the Moon book. The first library book I read was entitled Failure is not an Option, by Gene Kranz who was the main guy at Mission Control. He was at NASA from the Mercury days all the way through Apollos 11, 13 and in fact the whole Apollo program. Failure is not an Option is typical length of my Apollo books that I've read; it's 387 pages.

Next I read Men from Earth, by Buzz Aldrin who was on the crew of Apollo 11 and the second man on the Moon. I enjoyed learning little stories about Apollo 11, like how the people making the Lunar Module,  (which landed on the moon) for Apollo 11 had forgotten to install a handle on the outside....so the astronauts had to make sure they left Eagle's door open, or they couldn't get home! Men from Earth was my shortest book I read, it was a mere 266 pages.

For my third library book, I read Jim Lovell's exciting account of Apollos 8 and 13 in his autobiography, Lost Moon. (Apollo 8 was the first manned mission that circled the moon). Until I read about Apollo 13, I didn't really realize how close death was for Apollo 13's crew. I thought it was interesting that on Apollo 13, to keep the astronauts alive Mission Control had the crew construct a cardboard-and-duct-tape device to help with filtering out the air. With all Apollo's sophisticated technology, it all came down to cardboard and tape! Lost Moon was 365 pages.

For my fourth library book, I took a break from Apollo (wow!) and read astronaut Tom Jones' book Skywalking, an account of spaceflight aboard the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station in the 1990s and early 2000s. His book was 345 pages.

Back to Apollo, I read my longest Apollo book A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin (sp.?), a grand 584 pages. Although a longer book would be expected, because Chaikin interviewed all of the living Apollo lunar crews. In his book Chaikin described the terrible Apollo 1 fire and the success of Apollo 7 and Apollo 8. He wrote about Apollo 9, which tested the Apollo spacecraft, and of Apollo 10, which was a dress rehearsal for the first lunar landing, Apollo 11. He related the experiences of the Apollo 12 crew (Pete Conrad, Dick Gordan, and Alan Bean), and how Conrad and Bean flew to an exact point on the moon, within walking distance of (I believe) the Surveyor 3 probe which landed on the moon several months before.(Apollo 11 landed 4 miles off target, and had only 30 seconds of fuel left when it landed!)

Chaikin talked about Apollo 13, and Alan Shepard commanding Apollo 14, which lead America back into space after the close call of Apollo 13. While all the Apollo missions are exciting, I especially enjoyed reading about Apollo 15, Apollo 16, and Apollo 17, in which the moon-walking astronauts collected much data for scientists back home.  Apollo 15 was the first mission to have the Lunar Rover, the first car on the moon, and drive around Hadley Rile, on the mountains of the moon. On Apollo 16, John Young and Charlie Duke rode around at Descartes in the Rover to see what was there. And on Apollo 17, the first and so far only geologist-astronaut walked on the moon, Jack Schmitt. As he gleefully collected samples, he started singing,

"I was walking on the moon one day,
in the merry merry month of May..."

Actually it was December, but Mission Control reminded the moon-walkers that it could be May on the moon!

OK. Enough about A Man on the Moon. It's just I learned so much from it! After A Man on the Moon I read Angle of Attack, 287 pages. It was on the building of the Apollo spacecraft, and Harrison "Stormy" Storms, who oversaw and helped design the Apollo command and service module. Angle of Attack was written by Mike Gray.

Next on the list was a more recently published book, I believe in 2009. It is entitled Rocket Men, written by Craig Nelson, and is about Apollo 11. I thought that it was interesting that the computer memory in the Lunar Module had less memory than a cell phone! I forget if it was less or the same, but the number was around there. Rocket Men also talked about the Soviet-American Space Race, the Cuban Missile Crises, and Apollo 8. Rocket Men was 349 pages.

For my final Apollo book, I read Moonshot, by Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton. Both Shepard and Slayton were a part of the original Mercury Seven astronaut group. Moonshot talked quite a bit about Alan Shepard's Mercury flight, and Shepard being the first American in space. It talked about JFK deciding to send men to the moon, and of both Shepard and Slayton's orders to be grounded, as in they couldn't fly. Shepard had an inner-ear sickness, and Slayton had an irregular heartbeat.
However, Moonshot also recorded the happy stories of both Shepard and Slayton finally getting to fly in space.
Alan Shepard got to command Apollo 14 and land on the moon. Shepard took great delight in being the first and only moon-walker to golf on the moon. He had brought along some kind of a device to work as a golf cub, and also brought to the moon two golf balls. His first ball did not travel very far; however, his second one traveled for "miles and miles" according to Shepard.

Deke Slayton also got to fly in space, finally in 1975 aboard the Apollo-Soyuz flight. In this flight America and the U.S.S.R. performed a joint flight and docked an Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft together. The hardest thing in training, Slayton said, was learning Russian. The only comfort was that he knew the Russian crew was doing the same!

While up in space, Slayton was asked for some advice on behalf of the younger space people working at NASA. I'm paraphrasing, but the 51-year-old space rookie said, "Find something you want to do. Then don't stop till you've finally done it." I thought that was very good advice!! If I owned Moonshot, I think I would underline that!

Actually, to correct my post title, there is one more space book in the library, on Project Mercury. It's The Right Stuff, by Tom Wolfe. I'm sure I'm going to read it, I just don't know when.

I don't really know why I like Apollo. I just do. For some reason I really like learning about the Apollo program. When I'd finish an Apollo book, I'd get really really sad that Apollo was over and America wasn't doing anything really exciting in space anymore. So I'd just go and read another Apollo book! Then I would get excited all over again at the challenges to meet, the history-making missions, etc.
The nice thing about reading about Apollo is that there is always one more seat in the Lunar Module! While I'm sure I'll never land on the moon, through books I can peak over the astronaut's shoulders and see what they see, hear what they hear, feel and hope what they feel and hope. That's one thing I love about books. I may not go everywhere in the world (or in this case, out of it!), but through books I can go, and imagine myself, many places!

So I know this post has been a bit long and wordy. Usually I do not post this much. But I thought since I had recently finished reading a bunch of Apollo books, I should post on my blog. I hope you have enjoyed this post, and know now more about Apollo than you did before!

~Tennessee Photobug