The Story of Apollo 8

by Robert Zimmerman

A comprehensive account of the first manned space mission to leave Earth's orbit describes the odyssey of Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders in a study of a seminal mission that transformed human concepts of space exploration. IP.

Genres: Space, History, Nonfiction, Science, Adventure

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Darkpool · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm probably being a bit mean with the stars here, but aspects of this book really grated. It seemed to me to be a bit too "God bless America!" By this I'm not criticising the inclusion of the historical context in which the space race occurred, but some of the narrative comment that seemed a little too much in the style "and thus, freedom, Christianity and the American way triumphed over evil commie dictatorships!" This might play very well to a American audience in 1998, but I found it rather jarred my 2010/insignificant pacific democracy sensibilities. I also found the highly detailed accounts of what the astronauts' wives were doing/thinking/feeling a bit intrusive and, frankly, repetitive. So all of this prevented me giving this book a higher star rating.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Original review, pre-2017:

This is the only book-length account in the mainstream about one of the most audacious missions in space history--the first human flight to the moon's orbit: Apollo 8.

Published in 1998, this finally makes strides to address a mission which will always be in the shadow of one of its successors, Apollo 11--the first lunar landing mission. By undertaking this book, Zimmerman wants to do the right thing for space history, and his sense of mission is clear in many of his descriptions.

Zimmerman gives a good account of the 'earthrise' photo and answers the question of who took the photo which has become one of the most famous images in the history of photography. I won't give it away, but this section is probably the book's highlight.

He also tackles the meaning of the mission in the larger scope of the cold war, and it is here that Zimmerman becomes a little strident. He argues that the freedom of religion was key to the success of Apollo 8, and in doing so, ties that theme into the decision by the Apollo 8 crew to read from the Book of Genesis in lunar orbit on Christmas Eve 1968. I think Zimmerman gets a little carried away with his argument, as religion was only one of a number of key themes of the cold war period. Zimmerman does try to moderate his argument so that it doesn't come across with a heavy hand, but he isn't always successful.

I think Zimmerman's focus on ideology also takes away from his description of the mission itself, which I think needs coverage from a writer with greater technical facility. I wanted more coverage, specifically, of training and pre-flight activities, launch and flight operations, all of which are well accounted for in the public record.

Zimmerman also believes that Apollo 8--and specifically the earthrise photo--provided humankind with its first real awareness of the earth within the context of the larger universe. Our emerging understanding of the earth as a small and fragile place (a 'pale blue dot,' as Carl Sagan would later describe it) helped galvanize a new movement to protect the earth's environment. It's a good argument, and Zimmerman may be right.

At the time of my writing, the Apollo 8 astronauts are all still with us, but we may never see a full account of the flight from any of the crew, and I think that is quite unfortunate. I hope someday an ambitious writer will put together an authoritative account of this spaceflight for the good of the historical record. For now, Zimmerman's book will have to do.

Additional notes on second reading, post-2017:

I reread this immediately after reading Jeffrey Kluger's Apollo 8, which I think is a stronger book in almost every way.

Zimmerman's writing is competent and workmanlike. He frequently commits one of the cardinal sins of narrative writing by using passive voice, telling us things rather than showing us. Even with all air-to-ground and on-board voice transcripts available, Zimmerman still prefers to tell us that an astronaut said something, rather than have the astronaut speak directly to us, as Kluger did in his book. The passive voice makes Zimmerman's writing less involving.

I'm also still disappointed in Zimmerman hammering away at Berlin as his literary touchstone. He tries hard to tie in the symbolism of the Berlin Wall with Borman's brief station there in the 40s and make it into a metaphor for why Apollo 8 was important in a cold war context. On second reading it still doesn't work. Zimmerman also includes a number of side subjects of the era, such as the Prague Spring of 1968, and future space shuttle astronaut Fred Gregory (who really has nothing to do with Apollo 8), and those don't really work, either.

Interestingly, I think the major themes of the book--the explanation of the earthrise photo(s) and the reading from the Book of Genesis--actually read better this time. After my first reading, I thought Zimmerman was a bit melodramatic with his suggestion that the Genesis reading was an expression of cold war patriotism. For whatever reason, it didn't seem as awkward on the second reading. Likewise, Zimmerman's description of the earthrise photo event didn't seem as pedantic as it did the first time.

Finally, my chief criticism of the book is with how the writing is arranged. Zimmerman's timeline jumps around frustratingly, so it's hard for him to build the needed drama of the mission origin, planning, training, and operations as I think they should be told.

Here's a key example. One of the more dramatic moments in the Apollo 8 story is the decision of NASA leadership, including chief astronaut Deke Slayton, to change Apollo 8's mission from an earth orbit mission to a lunar mission--which had never been attempted with a human crew. It would be a quantum leap in ambition and difficulty that would test the best NASA had to offer. For whatever reason, Zimmerman doesn't cover this decision making process until the two-thirds point of his book. Instead, he opens the book on the morning of launch day, something that (in my opinion) really belongs in the second act, not the first. Essentially, Zimmerman decided to open with the visceral event, not the administrative event. But by doing so, he commits two errors. One, by opening with the visceral event and then working backward, he loses linearity that would help set the stage and build tension for the flight. And two, by burying the administrative event in the second half, he misses a chance to show that the decision making process was dramatic and an important supporting act for the mission.

Ultimately, the jumpy narrative is the book's biggest weakness, as it detracts from the natural flow of the story and limits momentum.

[Clay Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book very much. The author humanizes the astronauts and defines the the Superpowers very well.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genesis: The Story Of Apollo 8, The First Manned Flight To Another World by Robert Zimmerman is the novelised true story of the first manned mission to the moon. It describes to us both the mission itself as well as the lives of each of the three astronauts who flew: Commander Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders.

Having just finished watching “From the Earth to the Moon” series, I was familiar with the mission however the book gave a lot more insight and background than the TV series ever could.

The topic of space has always intrigued me and Sci-Fi is one of my favourite genres. I grew up watching most of the Star Trek series as well as reading Star Trek novels so this kind of book was right up my alley.

I found it was a little bit slow to start off with and it jumped around a bit, recapping other events that seemed unrelated to the Apollo 8 mission. It wasn’t until about halfway through that it picked up and I couldn’t put it down. Towards the end you can see how everything is tied together and I can see the point of everything that was written however it did seem a little disjointed at the beginning.

I enjoyed getting to know the three astronauts better and their history, and how they came to be on Apollo 8.

There was a lot of political insight in the book and it was quite disheartening to read about some of it and how society, although seeming to be searching for freedom, is in its quest practically doing the opposite.

Overall I enjoyed the book and I learnt more about a topic I enjoy. I would definitely recommend this book to those who like either Sci-Fi or history (or both!).

www.readingforthemasses.wordpress.com

[-eric- · Rating 5 out of 5]

My all-time favorite book on the Apollo era. THe story of the Borman/Lovell/Anders mission never fails to engross me, and I have read it many times

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a NASA geek from the 60's, Genesis was a look back at one of the great events in human history. Zimmerman contrasts Apollo 8 with the tumultuous events of 1968 throughout the book.

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

We have forgotten that before Apollo 8, no human had ever seen the earth as a globe.

Apollo 8 provided many firsts: the first time we saw the totality of the Earth—or about half of it at a time, in any case; the first trip to another world. Much of the way we see life on Earth is a direct result of Apollo 8 and the photographs and video sent from it.

Before Apollo 8, the earth had always been seen as that far horizon line, a flattened curve beyond which lay alien cultures and foreign lands… After Apollo 8, however, the human vision of our mother planet changed. The image of a “bright, blue marble” in the starkness of the void was far more compelling than anyone had dreamed.

Zimmerman places this accomplishment squarely in the context of that change, providing deep historical insight with only a minimum of historical text. It’s a wonderful achievement on its own. But he also provides us with a real sense of what the three astronauts saw and felt as they left the confines of Earth and entered the confines of lunar orbit. He does this both through their own eyes and thoughts and voices, and through the eyes, thoughts, and voices of their wives on Earth.

There’s even a sense of the incredible journey that led humanity from the ground to the skies to beyond. "As the sky began to lighten in the predawn hours of Saturday, December 21st, thousands and thousands of spectators gathered on the beaches of the Indian River” to watch the launch.

Also on the sand dune sat Charles and Anne Lindbergh. Two days earlier they had visited the astronauts for a pleasant afternoon lunch. The astronauts, about to join the ranks of pioneers like Lindbergh, sat in delight as he described his flight across the ocean. Later he talked about the time he had met Robert Goddard, the inventor of the liquid fueled rocket and the father of American rocketry.

Zimmerman also describes the different routes Anders, Borman, and Lovell took to become astronauts.

In our era, the Apollo 11 mission that landed on the moon has eclipsed everything that came before it. But by the time we landed on the moon we had already traveled to it twice, and for all the complications that landing added—and there were a lot—this first trip may have been the most influential. Even today, it still provides the most common image of Earthrise. In a very real sense that Zimmerman captures well, Apollo 8 marks the boundary between two very different views of humanity and humanity’s home.

“Houston, Apollo 8. Please be informed, there is a Santa Claus.”

[Matthew Kresal · Rating 2 out of 5]

In 1968, NASA launched perhaps the most ambitious mission in its history. Apollo 8 was a "Hail Mary" pass of a flight, one that could win or lose the Space Race that had raged throughout the decade. Overshadowed in later years by the first Moon Landing of Apollo 11 and the "successful failure" of Apollo 13, the mission that gave us the Genesis reading from the Moon and the Earthrise photograph has proven fertile ground for writers. Robert Zimmerman's book published three decades after the flight is an early example of this, proceeding the more recent Rocket Men and Apollo 8.

Zimmerman works to tell the story not only of the flight and the three men who traveled to the Moon on it but also to fit it into the context of both the Cold War and the upheaval of 1968. It's an approach that Robert Kurson used in Rocket Men and, honestly, that more recent work was far more successful. What that book does effortlessly, Genesis does in a heavy-handed and unconvincing way. An example of that comes with the slotting in of future Shuttle era astronaut Fred Gregory whose story doesn't fit into the Apollo 8 story, contributing to a sense of an incomplete and even fragmented historical narrative.

In the end, Genesis feels as if Zimmerman is trying to write a social history around the flight of Apollo 8 more than writing about the mission itself. In that regard, the book is less than successful. It is not a bad read but, if one has to choose but a single volume to read about the mission, this should be the option of almost last resort.

[Maria Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book and learning about a part of history that I lived through but was too young to remember now. I loved reading what each astronaut was doing and what their families were doing at any given time. It was all very interesting to me.

The part I had a harder time with was the surrounding events. The author is giving the story of Apollo 8 a bigger meaning in the world. That part of the book is about communism verses democracy. We get some of the politics of The Cold War, Viet Nam, turbulence and protests in 1960's USA and so forth. The author definitely has ideas he wants to put forth in addition to telling the story of the space mission. That was all less interesting to me. Still I enjoyed the book.

There are a few instances of language when the author is quoting someone.

[Hunter · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of those books that lives up to the adage about how most books ought to have just been an article. There is some decent stuff in there which could probably have filled up 30 pages for some good long-form, but it is buried within useless padding that does a very ineffectual job trying to place the mission within the larger Cold War, mostly dipping into tropes about Soviet totalitarianism and American Freedom™ that gets gratingly hagiographic by the end.

Skip it.

[Kent Archie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a lot about the mission and the astronauts. But I thought the author spent too much time on the religious reading during the mission and the astronauts religious beliefs. I think he was trying to make the point that the US was superior because our astronauts could read religious texts during mission but the Soviets couldn't.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite neat to read. It really brought the whole journey to life in a way that i better understood just how far and difficult it was for them. I find myself looking differently at the moon now.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book until the last two chapters where the author gets on a political soapbox.

[Assaad Mrad · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a science and space enthusiast, I really liked this book as you can see I finished it in less than 48 hours. Not for its technical input but for its philosophical view of the human exploration Robert Zimmerman is trying to describe.

As can be seen in most of the reviews, there is Christian and capitalist American bias which I hope most of the readers are mature enough to see. At one instance, Robert Zimmerman was openly criticizing the unwillingness of future explorers to publicly let know of their beliefs. Not that he is wrong, I partly support his side of the story. But not HIS own side although I am Christian myself. I'd really like to have an inclusive world but seeing how, in 2016, the world is unprepared for people showing off their beliefs, I can say thank god no manned mission to extraterrestrial space are on the cards for the near future.

I found the extensive talk about families and wives disturbing and unnecessary. Although their role was important in the feat itself. I didn't feel it was necessary for me to know about every visit Valerie Anders, Susan Borman, and Marilyn Lovell paid to their respective churches.

I particularly loved the final two chapters. The book was excellent in showing the surrounding circumstances of the cold war throughout its entirety and those two ultimate parts put the icing on the cake by properly showing the development of those issues going into the following three decades.

Overall, I recommend this book to anyone, not only the space exploration enthusiast.

[Lance · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had always thought of the US space program as an example of great engineering achievement. Of course politics played a role, as it does in everything in history. I just didn't realize how deeply seated the political drivers were.

In fact, the story Zimmerman spins is one in which Cold War one-up-manship was the real motivation behind extending our technological boundaries. But he also weaves in his tapestry the human element, showing how the backgrounds of each of the characters crashes together into a collage that provides one of the true engineering marvels of the 20th century.

Zimmerman also shows how the events surrounding Apollo 8 changed the world culturally. I particularly appreciated the examination of how the new perspective of the globe, one seen from the vantage point of the moon, changed the sense of scale that people had in their conceptions. Suddenly we were in a much smaller world, and that perspective fueled the fire behind many movements that gained momentum in the 1960s, particularly the environmental movement.

Overall, I recommend this book. It's not a terribly engrossing read, but it is a pleasant one, and the historical and cultural connections Zimmerman reveals makes the read worthwhile.

[Christopher Hivner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I probably liked this book more than some would because I am utterly fascinated with space exploration, especially the space race of the 1960s. Genesis was more than just the story of the mission that took 3 American astronauts into lunar orbit. It also gives you background on the men and their personalities, as well as insight into how their wives felt about and accepted the dangerous missions they went on. The author also interweaves the turbulent history that was going on around the world. 1968 was unbelievable in the vastness of the unrest that was happening in the United States. There were also of course comparisons to the Soviet space program and the different way they built their crafts.

I thought the author did a good job of bouncing back and forth between the different story lines. I enjoyed all the details that he added which gave the story texture instead of making it a recitation of facts.

[Nicholas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mix of space, biography, social history of America in the 60's and a bit of vomit. In fact probably less than half the book is about the Apollo 8 mission. The book is set in the context of the cold war; the reason for going to the moon in the first place. But perhaps a bit to much on the Berlin wall... although the parallel soviet space endeavours were interesting. It did give a fascinating insight into how the opening verses of Genesis were chosen to be read from the moon, and a glimpse as to why such a thing would probably never take place again... the 'secret' communion service on the surface of the moon the following year being a case in point.

[Bookworm Amir · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started reading this book - well this was the first BIG book I ever touched on. I was 10 years old when I started reading this, and ended up finishing it about a year or two years later. It really was complicated language for a 10 year old to comprehend. But I took the challenge anyways.

Now at 19, I am finally adding this book at Goodreads! haha, good Lord.

This book, well, from what I gather now, is an epic story I guess. Was it good, or bad? All I know is that its got about 450 pages.

Judging from the title, and since the space shuttle program has just ended, I say you should go ahead and read it if you have had any interest in space so far. From me, I shall reread it again.

[Tomasz Boguszewicz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Trochę techniki, trochę reportażu rodzinnego, trochę tła społeczno-politycznego, ale żadna z tych sfer nie jest opisana dobrze. Bardzo brakuje perpsktywy ludzi, któzy czuwali na ziemi nad przebiegiem misji, nie ma nic o przygotowaniach, problemach, etc. Zbyt wiele nacisku położono na odczucia subiketywne astronautów w czasie lotu, które nie są ani odkrywcze, ani specjalnie ciekawe. Ogólnie, rozczarowanie..

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author loves Christianity and hates Communism. Apart from his agenda-pushing, I enjoyed his straightforward storytelling style of writing. He did a good job situating the Apollo 8 astronauts in the bigger historical picture of the American and Russian space programs, as well as world events.

[Carrie Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book as it gives a personal inside view of the events of the Apollo 8 mission. I liked that the author wove the world politics as the time into the development of the book.

[Snakeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting Story.
Readable facts and figures.
Liked the commentary on the world at the time as well as the main story of the space flight.

[Eric Tsavdar · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are a space nut like me, you're going to enjoy this detailed look at the Apollo 8 mission. Awesome perspectives.

[John W. Christman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Story of Apollo 8

This book brought back many memories. That is why I gave the book 5 stars. Especially from launch through moon insertion.