96 books like Go, Flight!

I enjoyed this book because Chris Kraft was the father of manned spaceflight operations. He designed the control center concept, had it built, and then managed the early Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo Flights from it.

He was the very first Flight Director and later managed the Apollo flights and became the NASA Manned Spaceflight Center Director. All Flight Controllers highly admired this great leader. The building is now named the Christopher C. Kraft, Jr Mission Control Center. 

I enjoyed this book because I shared the author's life with him in both the Mercury and Mission Control Centers. I witnessed his intense management and leadership style first-hand.

Not only was he my direct supervisor, but he was my mentor and friend. His family was very close to mine; he was also my neighbor. Gene is one of the reasons the Space Program was so successful. He epitomizes "Tough and Competent."

I enjoyed this book because it describes one of the very first Flight Directors; one that people don’t know much about; Glynn Lunney. He was a relatively quiet person but extremely intelligent and capable. He is best known for his leadership in the control center during the Apollo XIII mission and during the Apollo Soyuz mission. He also was the Flight Dynamics Branch Chief that included all of the "Trench" Flight Controllers. 

I enjoyed this book because it tells the stories of many of the men who manned the first row of consoles in the Mission Control Center, which was called the “Trench.” Their individual stories are unique. They came from all walks of life and were mostly in their twenties during Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.

"We were the guys in the Trench: the Retrofire Officer, the Flight Dynamics Officer and the Guidance Officer. We were the ground pilots who tracked the spacecraft, calculated the maneuvers, and told the astronauts what time to burn, what maneuvers to do, and where to go.  We were a proud bunch." Jerry Bostic, February, 2000

I love behind-the-scenes stories, and this book excels in that department! Apollo: The Race to the Moon shares everything from the political workings of Apollo to the NASA management hierarchy to a comprehensive look at the engineering required for the U.S. space program. The authors provide a remarkable narrative of the Apollo program based on hours of interviews with NASA administrators, managers, engineers, and mission controllers.

I felt like I personally got to know all these people, who helped achieve one of the greatest feats in human history. The book highlights the creativity, imagination, and genius it took to realize the dream of landing on the moon. 

Haynes Manuals: they’re not just for cars anymore. Haynes also publishes books dedicated to the technical details of planes you’ll never own or service, and spacecraft you’ll never fly in. They’re detailed, they’re technical, and they’re geek gold. With a million color pictures and cutaway diagrams, and text crammed with comprehensive engineering details, the Haynes' Apollo 13 volume is a perfect companion to my Woods pick, or a great standalone in getting literally beneath the skin of the Apollo spacecraft and seeing exactly how all the moving parts worked. By all means buy the Haynes' Apollo 11 Manual too (I did), but I think this one has the edge in terms of technical depth–and you obviously get the full backstory of this aborted and almost disastrous Lost Moon mission too.

As explorers carrying cameras, the Gemini and Apollo astronauts (1965-72) were like the pioneer photographers of the 19th century who, with their cameras, responded to the unknowns of the American West. These astronauts, however, were responding to the new and unexplored by photographing their experiences inside their spacecraft and outside in the vacuum of space. During the late 90s the photographer Michael Light gained access to NASA’s Apollo-era photo archive and made the first drum-scanned digital files from perfect copies of the original flight films. Light’s artful editing and juxtaposition of superbly reproduced full-page black and white, and color images creates a cinematic-like journey to the moon and back. In the annals of published space photography, there are very few well-designed books as timeless.

This is the quintessential book on the Apollo program and probably my favorite book of all time. Even though I was very young during the years when astronauts were landing on the moon, the excitement and historic nature of those missions stayed with me, leading me to my career as a space journalist.

Andrew Chaikin’s book let me re-live it. This is the most comprehensive look at the Apollo program, I call it the “Apollo Bible” because it tells the entire story of Apollo, with unique insights into this fascinating period of history. Chaikin was able to interview all the living astronauts and NASA officials who were part of the program, as well as many of the engineers who worked behind the scenes.

This provides an intimate and comprehensive look at Apollo. Magnificently written and a monumental book on space history.

This children’s book about the Apollo program inspired *me*, so I can only imagine how inspirational it is for curious young minds. This book focuses on several non-astronauts, “the regular folks whose efforts made an impossible mission possible in the first place,” writes author Catherine Thimmesh.

This is a fascinating look at the dramatic story behind the Apollo 11 mission, the first to land humans on the moon. The personal stories from scientists, engineers, and even seamstresses portray how it took an army of people from around the world to successfully send three humans to the moon.

By now, nearly everyone has seen Apollo 13, the movie based on this gripping account by the mission’s commander. The book delves into both the events themselves and the background of the mission in ways a movie cannot, including an unlikely event during the spacecraft’s assembly, which ultimately led to the oxygen tank explosion.

Of all the hard-charging, high-achieving astronauts, Mr. Lovell was perhaps the most “normal” of the group, which I think is illustrated by the fact that he was one of the few to get through the Apollo program with his marriage intact. His humanity, intelligence, and determination shine forth in this account, illustrating what it took to survive their ordeal.