In the Shadow of the Moon: A Challenging Journey to Tranquility, 1965-1969 Book

I need to do a couple of housekeeping tasks before we get to the main review, so feel free to skip on down a couple of paragraphs if you have no interest in listening to me get on my personal soapbox and venting a bit.

First off, I'm a HUGE believer that math and science literacy in the United States should be a targeted focus for K-12 curriculums nationwide. Students in the United States suffer when compared to other countries around the world when it comes to math and science proficiency, and this gap MUST be closed if the U.S. wishes to be a leader in theoretical and practical science applications as we get further into the 21st century. One look at this graph will give you an idea as to where the U.S. currently stands compared to other industrialized nations with regards to math and science education.



As you can easily see, we have a lot of work ahead of us if we wish to once again become a scientifically literate society.

Second off, I'd like to commend The University of Nebraska Press for bringing a comprehensive history of space exploration to the masses in the form of a MASSIVE collection of books that bring the humanity and history of the "space race" to life. The "Outward Odyssey" series is written for the layman yet maintains a serious tone and doesn't dilute the science or talk down to its audience. To my knowledge it is the only book series to present a thorough history of international space exploration from the early days of rocketry all the way to the privatization of space travel. I cannot say enough good things about this series. I'm pretty much of the belief that every American home should own a complete set of these books, much like families in the middle portions of the 20th century always seemed to have a set of encyclopedias sitting around for easy reference. At the very least every public library should own a set.



So, I think it's safe now for me to proceed with the review. Thanks for bearing with me.

Seeing as 2019 is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landings, I thought that it would be a good idea to place some reading focus on the events at hand. The first book that I decided to read is one of the volumes from the aforementioned "Outward Odyssey" series, titled "In the Shadow of the Moon: A Challenging Journey to Tranquility, 1965-1969." This book details the Gemini and Apollo missions that led up to Apollo 11, the breathtaking final leg of the journey to the moon that saw Neil Armstrong become the first human being to set foot upon an alien landscape. Apollo 11 is only given a short history here, as the "Outward Odyssey" series devotes another volume entirely dedicated to documenting the Apollo moon missions, that being "Footprints in the Dust." Obviously that will be another review……

Now listen, you really get your money's worth out of any of the books in the "Outward Odyssey" series, and this is certainly no exception. Exhaustively researched and sourced, and augmented by hundreds of hours of interviews with the principals themselves, "In The Shadow of the Moon" provides an in-depth recounting of each important mission as things led up to the eventual Apollo landing. In addition, you get a number of black & white photographs that add visual punch to the narrative, though I do wish the authors had sprung for a few color reproductions here and there. That said, the knowledge base alone makes up for any slight shortcomings.

In this book you will LEARN things! Stuff like this:

Donn Eisele's divorce was a shock to the astronaut corps and the press corps alike. The astronauts had all been groomed to be All-American Boys who stuck to the straight and narrow, but the truth of the matter was far from that. It was hardly unusual for an astronaut to give in to the temptation of what was essentially a rock star existence and have a girlfriend down at the Cape. Most of the affairs were low-key and kept hushed up, but Eisele broke that mold in a very public way, derailing his career in the process. Others would come forth in his wake, but as the first to publicly split with his wife, he was the unfortunate guinea-pig for what was essentially a life in a vacuum.

The fiery accident that claimed the lives on Ed White, Gus Grissom, and Roger Chaffee is described in detail, from the circumstances that caused the accident to the eventual aftermath, and then onto the renewed effort to make sure that future Apollo missions would be the safest that they could possibly be. Any and all room for error was eliminated by the engineers working in tandem with the astronauts, and the payoff was a hugely successful space program that allowed humans to walk the face of an alien world.

Over time, the Apollo 7 mission has been maligned as one where the crew essentially "mutinied" and has been tarnished by the idea that the astronauts hurled nothing but curses and invective at the ground crew. Though Apollo 7 was a challenging mission, the transcripts of the flight reveal a crew that was functioning at a high level and working well with the flight controllers. Gene Kranz himself is the first to admit that ground control did not stick to the established flight plan and overloaded the mission with unexpected testing and experiments. That this mission performed so well was a testament to how quickly the astronauts could adapt to new data and expectations quite literally on the fly.

There are also several sections of the book dedicated to the Russian space exploration of the era, and these are fascinating case studies in and of themselves. The untimely death of Chief Designer Sergei Korolev seems to be one of the key reasons why the Soviets were not able to keep up with the American space program. His death left a void in direction and leadership that seemed to paralyze the Russians for a significant period of time. Had he not died when he did the race for the moon might have been much closer than it ended up being.

And you know, I could go on and on, but the fact is that you need this book (and this entire series of books) if you have even a passing interest in space exploration. I was astronaut crazy as a kid, and reading these books gives me so much more insight to an era that captured my imagination, and the imaginations of millions of other kids and adults. The moon landings are still considered the technological apex of mankind's urge to explore and conquer the unknown. "Outward Odyssey" puts you right in the action and demands that you immerse yourself in what was undeniably an exciting time in human history.