![Amazon prime logo](https://cdn.statically.io/img/m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/marketing/prime/new_prime_logo_RGB_blue._CB426090081_.png)
Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with fast, free delivery
Amazon Prime includes:
Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.
Amazon Prime members enjoy:- Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
- Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
- Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
- A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
- Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
- Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access
Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.
Buy new:
-40% $11.95$11.95
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
Save with Used - Good
$8.98$8.98
Ships from: Amazon Sold by: ZBK Wholesale
Learn more
1.27 mi | ASHBURN 20147
![Kindle app logo image](https://cdn.statically.io/img/m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/kindle/app/kindle-app-logo._CB668847749_.png)
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon Paperback – May 21, 2019
![iphone with kindle app](https://cdn.statically.io/img/m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/kindle/dp/nfcx/PersistentWidget-Ruby-Large._CB485955431_.png)
Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip.
View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look.
Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more.
Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration.
Purchase options and add-ons
“Robert Kurson tells the tale of Apollo 8 with novelistic detail and immediacy.”—Andy Weir, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Martian and Artemis
By August 1968, the American space program was in danger of failing in its two most important objectives: to land a man on the Moon by President Kennedy’s end-of-decade deadline, and to triumph over the Soviets in space. With its back against the wall, NASA made an almost unimaginable leap: It would scrap its usual methodical approach and risk everything on a sudden launch, sending the first men in history to the Moon—in just four months. And it would all happen at Christmas.
In a year of historic violence and discord—the Tet Offensive, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago—the Apollo 8 mission would be the boldest, riskiest test of America’s greatness under pressure. In this gripping insider account, Robert Kurson puts the focus on the three astronauts and their families: the commander, Frank Borman, a conflicted man on his final mission; idealistic Jim Lovell, who’d dreamed since boyhood of riding a rocket to the Moon; and Bill Anders, a young nuclear engineer and hotshot fighter pilot making his first space flight.
Drawn from hundreds of hours of one-on-one interviews with the astronauts, their loved ones, NASA personnel, and myriad experts, and filled with vivid and unforgettable detail, Rocket Men is the definitive account of one of America’s finest hours. In this real-life thriller, Kurson reveals the epic dangers involved, and the singular bravery it took, for mankind to leave Earth for the first time—and arrive at a new world.
“Rocket Men is a riveting introduction to the [Apollo 8] flight. . . . Kurson details the mission in crisp, suspenseful scenes. . . . [A] gripping book.”—The New York Times Book Review
- Print length384 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherRandom House Trade Paperbacks
- Publication dateMay 21, 2019
- Dimensions5.17 x 0.86 x 8 inches
- ISBN-10081298871X
- ISBN-13978-0812988710
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
Frequently bought together
![Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81rcNWZP2CL._AC_UL116_SR116,116_.jpg)
Similar items that may ship from close to you
- Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War IIPaperbackFREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by AmazonGet it as soon as Friday, Jul 26
- Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession, and the Search for a Legendary Pirate ShipPaperbackFREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by AmazonGet it as soon as Friday, Jul 26
- Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and BeyondPaperbackFREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by AmazonGet it as soon as Friday, Jul 26
- Carrying the FirePaperbackFREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by AmazonGet it as soon as Friday, Jul 26
- Crashing Through: The Extraordinary True Story of the Man Who Dared to SeePaperbackFREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by AmazonGet it as soon as Friday, Jul 26
- RIGHT STUFFPaperbackFREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by AmazonGet it as soon as Friday, Jul 26
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Rocket Men is a riveting introduction to the [Apollo 8] flight. . . . Kurson details the mission in crisp, suspenseful scenes. . . . [A] gripping book.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Kurson’s first-rate account of this remarkable spaceflight starts by reminding us what a gamble it was, a revelatory wake-up nudge for anyone who thinks moon flights were routine. . . . There are many pieces to the Apollo 8 story, but Kurson brings them together effortlessly.”—USA Today
“Rocket Men is close-to-the-bone adventure-telling on a par with Alfred Lansing’s Endurance and Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air. It’s as close to a movie as writing gets.”—Mary Roach, The Washington Post
“Kurson tells the behind-the-scenes story of Rocket Men with the pace of a thriller and the sensibility of a screenwriter. . . . With his focus on the astronauts’ young families, Kurson holds readers rapt to the heartwarming finale.”—Vanity Fair
“Engrossing . . . Kurson builds suspense around a mind-bendingly complex and dangerous journey.”—Associated Press
“Spectacular . . . [Rocket Men] carries on in great style through 350-some pages of ‘daring, adventure, risk-taking’ and so much more. . . . Kurson’s portraits of the men, as well as their wives, their families and space-program colleagues, are intimate and artfully drawn.”—Chicago Tribune
“Refreshing . . . The book will bring long-deserved attention to a mission that has been overshadowed. . . . Apollo 8’s success not only salvaged the space program but also managed to relieve the pessimism regarding the future into which the country had plunged.”—Lincoln Journal Star
“Apollo 11 grabbed the glory, but Apollo 8 was the mission that proved humans could travel to the Moon, and its crew (Jim Lovell, Frank Borman and William Anders) captured the landmark photo of Earthrise over the lunar horizon. This is the story of their mission, told in cinematic detail.”—NBC News
“An account of what could be America’s most stunning achievement: Apollo 8 and the world’s first journey to the Moon. This is a great story. . . . The best book I’ve read this year.”—Jim Bridenstine, administrator of NASA
“In 1968 we sent men to the Moon. They didn’t leave boot prints, but it was the first time humans ever left Earth for another destination. That mission was Apollo 8. And Rocket Men, under Robert Kurson’s compelling narrative, is that under-told story.”—Neil deGrasse Tyson
“A timely and thrilling reminder of a heroic American achievement . . . It has it all—suspense, drama, risk, and loving families. We could use those days again.”—Tom Brokaw
“Flat-out terrific . . . The tale is told with the care and clarity, and the heart-banging drama, that Robert Kurson's legion of readers have come to expect from him.”—Scott Turow
“Kurson presents not only the challenges, risks, ambition, and success of Apollo 8, but a story of human spirit.”—Nicole Stott, NASA ISS and space shuttle astronaut
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Do You Want to Go to the Moon?
August 3, 1968—Four months earlier
As he sat on a beach in the Caribbean, a quiet engineer named George Low ran his fingers through the sand and wondered whether he should risk everything to win the Space Race and help save the world.
At forty-one, Low was already a top manager and one of the most important people at NASA, in charge of making sure the Apollo spacecraft was flightworthy.
Apollo had a single goal, perhaps the greatest and most audacious ever conceived: to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy had committed the United States to achieving this goal by the end of the decade. Never had a more inspiring promise been made to the American people—or one that could be so easily verified.
Now, Kennedy’s end-of-decade deadline was in jeopardy. Design and engineering problems with the lunar module—the spidery landing craft that would move astronauts from their orbiting ship to the lunar surface and back again—threatened to stall the Apollo program and put Kennedy’s deadline, just sixteen months away, out of reach. And that led to another problem. Every day that Apollo languished, the Soviet Union moved closer to landing its own crew on the Moon. And that mattered. The nation that landed the first men on the Moon would score the ultimate victory in the years-long Space Race between the two superpowers, one from which the second place finisher might never recover.
For months, NASA’s best minds had worked around the clock to fix the issues with the lunar module, but the temperamental and complex landing craft only fell further and further behind schedule. By summer, many at the space agency had abandoned hope of making a manned lunar landing by the end of the decade.
And then Low had an idea.
It had come to him just a few weeks before he’d arrived at this beach, and it was wild, an epiphany, a dream. It was also dangerous, risky beyond anything NASA had ever attempted. But the more Low thought about it, the more he believed it could keep the Apollo program moving and save Kennedy’s deadline—and maybe even beat the Soviets to the Moon.
Low inhaled the fresh, salty air and tried to push space travel out of his thoughts. At home, his mind burned nonstop with ideas, formulae, trajectories. Now he needed a break, and it should have been easy to find one in this tropical paradise. About the only reminder of America was the local newspaper, which told of the Newport Pop Festival in Costa Mesa, California, where more than a hundred thousand music fans were expected, and brought word of potential protests at the coming Democratic National Convention in Chicago. It had been an explosive year already, with assassinations, riots, and violence. A quiet beach was just where a man like Low needed to be.
But Low could not relax. He walked the beach, looking out over the ocean toward Moscow and the Moon, thinking, imagining, America and the world on fire behind him.
Five days after Low returned from vacation, a serious man with an oversized head went to work inside a giant assembly plant in Downey, California. His mission: to build a machine from the future that would help make the world safe for democracy.
Over and over, astronaut Frank Borman opened and closed the hatch on the Apollo command module, a cone-shaped capsule made to fly a three-man crew to the Moon. He’d already certified that the hatch worked, then certified it again, but he would not stop pushing on it, making sure it opened, no matter what.
Nearby, Borman’s two crewmates, Jim Lovell and rookie Bill Anders, got ready to test the hundreds of dials, switches, levers, lights, and gauges that made the command module work. The spacecraft was small, measuring just eleven feet tall and thirteen feet wide at its base, but every inch of it had been designed by Borman and others to be impervious to a galaxy of deadly forces.
A nearby transistor radio played Top 40 music, which caught Borman’s ear.
“That’s a pretty slick song,” Borman said. “Who’s the fella singing it?”
“That’s the Beatles, Frank,” Lovell said, laughing.
Borman preferred the standards. As a kid, he’d memorized the lyrics to all the great Western songs played on the radio in Arizona. He could still sing “Cowboy Jack”—a ditty that dated to the nineteenth century—but didn’t dare start because he knew Lovell and Anders would insist that he sing it to the end.
Borman stuck to classic films, too. Alone among astronauts, it seemed, he hadn’t bothered to see 2001: A Space Odyssey, the new Stanley Kubrick film released in April that showed men flying to the Moon. That stuff was science fiction, Borman told his colleagues; America had real people to get to the Moon.
Borman and his crewmates knew that the lunar module was troubled and behind schedule. But until designers and engineers could make the fixes, these astronauts could do little more than make certain that the command module was perfect. So they climbed inside their spacecraft and began testing it, pushing the command module mercilessly, because that’s what outer space would do to it, too.
And then the phone rang.
Smart people knew better than to bother Borman at work. But the man on the line went back a long way with Borman. And he said it was urgent.
Donald Kent “Deke” Slayton was in charge of managing astronaut training and choosing crews for manned space missions. If an astronaut flew on board a NASA spacecraft, it was because Slayton had chosen him to go.
When Borman heard who was calling, he wriggled out of the capsule and grabbed an extension.
“Deke, I’m in the middle of a big test here,” he said.
“Frank, I need you back in Houston.”
“Talk to me now.”
“No, I can’t talk over the phone. It’s gotta be in person. Grab an airplane and get to Houston. On the double.”
Borman grimaced—America did not have time for nonsense and delays—but Slayton was in charge, and NASA, no matter its official designation as a civilian organization, was a military operation to Borman, so he took his orders. Poking his head back inside the spacecraft, he told his partners, “You guys are stuck with the module. I’ve gotta go back to Houston.”
Borman grabbed his rental car, drove to Los Angeles International Airport, and hopped in a T-38 Talon, a two-seat twin-engine supersonic jet used by astronauts for training, commuting, and even some fun, and pointed it toward Texas. At forty, he still looked every bit the West Point cadet: sandy blond near-crewcut, square jaw and chin set for combat, arched eyebrows that seemed a radar for anything askew. Even his head was military issue, all right angles and slightly larger than life, a feature that had earned him the childhood nickname Squarehead.
Borman couldn’t imagine why he was needed in Houston, and so suddenly. He was commander of Apollo 9, the third of four manned test flights NASA planned before it would attempt to land men on the Moon. Apollo 9 was to be a basic mission—orbit Earth, test the spacecraft, come home. It wasn’t scheduled to launch for another six months. Still, Borman knew he hadn’t been summoned for nothing. The last time he’d received a “drop everything” call had been the darkest day in NASA’s history.
It had happened about a year and half earlier, on January 27, 1967, when a fire broke out in the spacecraft during a simulated countdown on the launchpad in Florida. The Apollo 1 rehearsal should have been safe and routine for the three astronauts inside, who were preparing for the actual flight about four weeks later. But a spark occurred in the electrical system and the men were trapped as the sudden fire spread in pure oxygen. Even Ed White, the strongest of all NASA’s astronauts, couldn’t muscle open the command module’s hatch as flames spread through the spacecraft.
Borman had been enjoying a rare break with his family at a lakeside cottage near Houston, where they lived, when Slayton’s call came in that day.
“Frank, we’ve had a bad fire on Pad Thirty-four and we’ve got three astronauts dead—Gus Grissom, Ed White, and one of the new boys, Roger Chaffee. Get to the Cape as quick as you can; you’ve been appointed to the investigative committee.”
The news stunned Borman, who considered Ed White the brother he’d never had. And it devastated Borman’s wife, Susan, who counted Pat White among her best friends. Borman told Slayton he’d fly to Florida right away but first needed to stop at the Whites’ home in Houston.
When he and Susan arrived, Pat was hysterical. She was the mother of two children, ages ten and thirteen, who suddenly had no father. Even in her raw grief, just hours after receiving the news, a Washington bureaucrat had informed her that despite Ed’s wishes to be buried at West Point, the three fallen astronauts would all be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.
“Give me the guy’s name,” Borman said.
He had the man on the phone a minute later.
“It’s already been decided in Washington,” the man insisted.
“I don’t give a good goddamn what’s been decided,” Borman said. “Ed wanted to be buried at West Point and that’s what’s going to happen, and I’ll go all the way to President Johnson to make sure it happens, so you better fucking well do it.”
Four days later, White was buried at West Point. Borman and Lovell were among the pallbearers. Anders also attended.
After the funeral, Borman began his work on the investigative committee convened by NASA. He was the only astronaut on the panel, a sign that NASA considered him to be among its best. His first job was to help supervise the disassembly of the Apollo 1 spacecraft at Cape Kennedy in order to determine the cause of the fire. Days later, he became the first astronaut to enter the cabin. He found a burned-out nightmare. Rows of equipment and panels had been charred and covered in soot, debris was scattered everywhere. Hoses connecting the astronauts to their life support systems were melted. No matter where he looked, Borman could see no color, only grays and blacks.
That night, he joined Slayton and others at a restaurant in Cocoa Beach called The Mousetrap, a NASA haunt. Borman seldom drank to excess, but the smell of the scorched spacecraft needed bleaching, and he started in early. He raised toasts to his fallen brothers, then threw his glass into the fireplace. White was among the straightest arrows Borman had ever known—honest to a fault, a true patriot, and a man who didn’t mess around with the sports cars or fast women so readily available to astronauts. For both men, family came first. The Bormans and Whites often shared a house on a lake near Houston for fishing trips. Borman couldn’t remember missing someone as much as he missed Ed White that night.
Borman spent the next two months inside the burned spacecraft, studying the design, searching for flaws, making fixes in his mind. In April 1967, Congress held hearings into the cause of the fire, and Borman was called to testify.
Much of the questioning was aggressive and antagonistic, full of second-guesses and should-haves and pointed fingers, but Borman held firm, hiding nothing and acknowledging NASA’s responsibility, but never allowing congressmen to kick the agency just because it was down. He still ached for the loss of his friend, Ed White, but never allowed those emotions to spill into his report. Near the end of the hearings, he offered some of its most memorable testimony.
“We are trying to tell you that we are confident in our management, and in our engineering, and in ourselves,” Borman said. “I think the question is really: Are you confident in us?” A few days later, he told lawmakers, “Let’s stop the witch hunt and get on with it.” At NASA, it seemed there wasn’t a person, from the administrator to the janitors, who didn’t cheer him on. In the end, Congress took his advice and NASA continued on its mission to land men on the Moon.
Having survived the inquest, NASA approached Borman with an extraordinary offer: Take temporary leave from the astronaut program to head up the team tasked with implementing design changes to the command module. He accepted on the spot. He and others worked to make the new version of the capsule the most advanced, and safest, spacecraft ever built.
Borman could only hope there hadn’t been another tragedy as he landed his jet at Ellington Air Force Base and made his way to Slayton’s office. He suspected something unusual was afoot when he was asked to close the door behind him. Slayton addressed him without even sitting down:
“We just got word from the CIA that the Russians are planning a lunar fly-by before the end of the year. We want to change Apollo 8 from an Earth orbital to a lunar orbital flight. A lot has to come together. And Apollo 7 has to be perfect. But if it happens, Frank, do you want to go to the Moon?”
The idea startled Borman. Apollo 8 was meant to fly in December, just four months from now, but certainly not to the Moon. Apollo 8 was a conservative mission designed for low Earth orbit, perhaps at 125 miles altitude. It was one of several essential steps leading up to a manned lunar landing, hopefully before the end of 1969. Everything went in steps at NASA. Everything.
But Slayton meant exactly what he said. He wanted Borman to change missions and fly to the Moon. At a distance of 240,000 miles. In just sixteen weeks. Slayton didn’t discuss the fact that the lunar module couldn’t possibly be ready by then. He didn’t discuss any of the other myriad reasons NASA couldn’t be ready to fly men to the Moon by year’s end. In fact, Slayton gave very few additional details. He didn’t even ask if Borman cared to talk things over with his wife or crew.
Borman would have been justified in taking days, if not weeks, to consider such a proposition. And yet Slayton needed an answer, and he needed it now. Borman understood the urgency. If the Soviet Union sent men to the Moon first—even if those men didn’t land—it would score a major victory in the Space Race and deal a devastating blow in the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union. The mission Slayton was proposing would be exquisitely dangerous. But it also had the power to change history. Now, suddenly, it all depended on the decision of Frank Borman and his crew.
Product details
- Publisher : Random House Trade Paperbacks; Reprint edition (May 21, 2019)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 384 pages
- ISBN-10 : 081298871X
- ISBN-13 : 978-0812988710
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.17 x 0.86 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #116,241 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
![Robert Kurson](https://cdn.statically.io/img/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91UiOacr4bL._SY600_.jpg)
Robert Kurson is an American author, best known for his 2004 bestselling book, Shadow Divers, the true story of two Americans who discover a World War II German U-boat sunk 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey. Kurson began his career as an attorney, graduating from Harvard Law School, and practicing real estate law. Kurson’s professional writing career began at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he started as a sports agate clerk and soon gained a full-time features writing job. In 2000, Esquire published “My Favorite Teacher,” his first magazine story, which became a finalist for a National Magazine Award. He moved from the Sun-Times to Chicago magazine, then to Esquire, where he won a National Magazine Award and was a contributing editor for years. His stories have appeared in Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, and other publications. He lives in Chicago.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book engaging, thoroughly researched, and beautiful. They describe the content as deeply human, personal, and awe-inspiring. Readers describe the writing quality as adventurous, well-written, and taut. They also mention that the book tells the tale of three brave men and the upheaval in America.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the writing quality of the book great, adventurous, and a keeper. They also say it tells the tale of three brave men and bold risks. Readers are captivated by the intimate look at the crew.
"...I was captivated by the intimate look that I got of the crew - Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders, how they grew up and became astronauts, how..." Read more
"...Well recommended." Read more
"I have some good things to say about this book. I think it is valuable but first, I guess I am the only person who is not always impressed with the..." Read more
"This book is a wonderful and exciting story of man's first flight to the moon: Apollo 8 in 1968...." Read more
Customers find the book very thoroughly researched, engaging, and a valuable contribution to understanding the significance of Apollo 8. They also say it captures all aspects and gives the reader a real sense of what was happening. Readers also mention that the characterization is stellar, and the book tells it with style and grace. They say the details provided are easy to understand and presented in such a way that non-technical readers can understand them.
"...Kurson’s research is extensive including time spent with Borman, Lovell, Anders , people from NASA, reading a multitude of documents, watching..." Read more
"...Much like The Right Stuff it is thorough, well researched and reads like a novel...." Read more
"...Kurson's telling of this story makes a compelling argument – even if you don't agree with it, it makes wonderful reading – that Apollo 8 involved..." Read more
"...It’s also very well researched and the interview access to the astronauts, their wives, and mission heads, allowed me to be a fly on the wall at NASA..." Read more
Customers find the book very well written, clear, and taut. They also say the drama of each moment of the mission is conveyed in muscular, dynamic writing.
"...The narration by Ray Porter is absolutely wonderful. I just purchased a hard copy for my husband." Read more
"...The book narrates in plain and often thrilling language the challenges that were overcome enroute to the Moon...." Read more
"...Other moments kept me smiling and even laughing. The vivid, flowing prose, and the wonderful detail and dialogue, breathed life into the book and..." Read more
"...to take the risk and read this one as well; although both books are well written, felt this book started out a little slow, but it really picked up..." Read more
Customers find the book deeply human, inspiring, and marveling at the courage and brilliance that made Apollo 8 a milestone. They also say the characters are fully formed, and the book is respectful of all the participants.
"...This is a story of extraordinary men and their families, an extraordinary event in history. The narration by Ray Porter is absolutely wonderful...." Read more
"...I felt intimately connected to the personalities, the events, the most dramatic moments, and the risk and historic weight of the undertaking...." Read more
"...with associated risks makes this a story of will, determination and perseverance and an awe-inspiring glimpse at the stuff of which these astronauts..." Read more
"...rare combination of ferocious competence, grim determination, unshakable devotion, and nerves of absolute steel that were manifest not only in the..." Read more
Customers find the book engaging and inspiring.
"...flowing prose, and the wonderful detail and dialogue, breathed life into the book and held my interest to the last page...." Read more
"...this a story of will, determination and perseverance and an awe-inspiring glimpse at the stuff of which these astronauts are made...." Read more
"...Thanks to Robert Kurson for his insightful book bringing to life, not only the mission, but the people behind it...." Read more
"...I burn through these pages. His stuff is so digestible and entertaining...." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the engagingness of the book. Some find it hard to put down, while others say they got into it and couldn't put it down.
"...Once I picked up the book, I found it almost impossible to put down...." Read more
"This book was incredibly hard to put down. I felt like the 13 year old I was during the flight." Read more
"...This book will suck you in. It's difficult to put down once you get started. You can feel the tension of the decision process to launch as..." Read more
"But after I got into it, it was hard to put down. It really brought everything back to mind as I continued reading." Read more
Reviews with images
![We are still an AMAZING country. Let's not forget that.](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/common/transparent-pixel._V192234675_.gif)
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
I was captivated by the intimate look that I got of the crew - Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders, how they grew up and became astronauts, how they met and fell in love with their wives, how their wives were impacted by what their husbands were doing, the sacrifice of family time. The wives of these men deserve a lot of credit and are heroes in their own right. Their personal stories are moving. I was on the edge of my seat as Kurson so skillfully gave me “a sense of being there”. I was surprised that some of the technical and scientific parts were made understandable and interesting and amazed at the scope of things that went into making decisions.
The way the mission is brought into historical context is simply stunning. I hung on every word as the picture is painted of a fractured time in American history with events that I remember- the race to space with Russia, John Kennedy’s dream of landing on the moon, the Vietnam war, civil rights protests, race riots , demonstrations in Chicago, unrest in the country, the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. This book doesn’t just tell us about Apollo 8, it tells the story of our nation in 1968.
I loved the Epilogue finding out what the crew did afterwards and where they were in their lives at the time of the 50th anniversary of the mission. I very much appreciated the author’s note in his own voice, how he was inspired to write this book. Kurson’s research is extensive including time spent with Borman, Lovell, Anders , people from NASA, reading a multitude of documents, watching videos and so much more. This is a story of extraordinary men and their families, an extraordinary event in history. The narration by Ray Porter is absolutely wonderful. I just purchased a hard copy for my husband.
Apollo 8's journey to the Moon was a lifetime ago. Robert Kurson has recreated that epochal event in "Rocket Men." The book narrates in plain and often thrilling language the challenges that were overcome enroute to the Moon. Not least, he captures the spirit of the special men who made journey, and what it cost them. For those who didn't live through the event, the book is a chance to become acquainted with the late 1960's, at least from a particular point of view. Well recommended.
This book, about the Apollo 8 mission, the training and lead up to the mission itself. Apollo 8 seems to have been “lost” in the history of the Apollo missions in the aftermath or the moon landing and the near tragedy of Apollo 13. None of these mission would have been possible or successful without Apollo 8. Kurson writes books on historical events like a novel. Once I picked up the book, I found it almost impossible to put down. This book would have interest to anyone with even the slightest interest in the US space missions. The book also brings the Apollo 8 mission, the astronauts and all the support personnel back to the forefront of NASA’s space exploration where it belongs. Highly recommend.
This book puts some events and personal interactions in a rather dramatic light events and I have two minds about that. From our present vantage point we know how all the social events related to the Soviets played out in the end, the Cuban missile crisis, the arms race. So, books and articles on this subject often tend to be fairly dry and objective and not highly emotional because now we know that the Russians did not actually nuke us and that we won the cold war and that the USSR and its communism collapsed. The rather dry factual treatment we read very often today about the shock that sputnik and other soviet successes in space caused us probably does a disservice to history, this book makes it more dramatic, which is valuable. The fear level we had at that time really explains why the Apollo program took so many huge risks to hit the arbitrary "before the decade is out" ambition of JFK. That level of fear drove NASA (I have the highest admiration for NASA) to make fatal mistakes that led to the Apollo 1 fire. So, this book may do the best job I have seen of making that sense of fear and urgency real.
I was alive but young when this all happened. I do remember the hide under the desk drills (all seems so absurd now doesn't it?) Since I was young during the Cuban missile crisis it did not really hit me but I do remember my parents glued to the news. So again, I have to say that this book brings that level of fear and perhaps paranoia (as seen from our vantage point today) to life better than other drier accounts.
The space program was something that made me proud of my country. Its a highlight of my childhood along with the music. John Glenn and John Lennon stand out in my memories of that time. The level of my nostalgia for this shining moment in time is off the charts. I have admiration verging on reverence for the people involved in this mind boggling achievement, all that led to the Apollo program. I have huge admiration for all the people who continue to research our planet, solar system, galaxy and universe, the scientists, the engineers and the people who take the biggest personal risks, the astronauts. These days I am devouring books on anything and everything related to our history in the space program, especially the X-15 program, as well as our present missions and future plans. Many today seem a bit blase about this. I never have been.
Top reviews from other countries
![](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amazon-avatars-global/default._CR0,0,1024,1024_SX48_.png)
![](https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amazon-avatars-global/default._CR0,0,1024,1024_SX48_.png)
Really good story telling of a great adventure.
![](https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amazon-avatars-global/default._CR0,0,1024,1024_SX48_.png)
The book, in unpretentious and down-to-earth language, manages to take an account of real science, invention and risk-taking and turn it into a thrilling page-turner. My knowledge and insight into the US space programme of the 1960s is much the richer and more complete as a result. At the same time, the book tells the personal stories of three astronauts, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders, in a warm and engaging manner.
If there is anything to criticise, it is the somewhat incongruous insertion of a chapter summarising the series of mainly political and social events in 1968 that made this a bleak year for Americans. The intention is to put the wonder of the Apollo 8 mission - once it could be deemed to have been successful - into the context of what had otherwise apparently been a dispiriting year for Americans. I think the book would have conveyed the extraordinary achievement of the mission just as well without this section. But this is merely nit-picking.
For anyone interested in the history of space exploration, and the US space programme in particular, I can only recommend this book.
![](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amazon-avatars-global/default._CR0,0,1024,1024_SX48_.png)
![](https://images-fe.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amazon-avatars-global/default._CR0,0,1024,1024_SX48_.png)