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One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon
President John F. Kennedy astonished the world on May 25, 1961, when he announced to Congress that the United States would land a man on the moon by 1970. No group was more surprised than the engineers at NASA.
Kindle Edition
First published June 11, 2019
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About the author
Charles Fishman
23 books78 followersAs a reporter, Charles Fishman has tried to get inside organizations, both familiar and secret, and explain how they work.
In the course of reporting about water to write The Big Thirst, Fishman has stood at the bottom of a half-million-gallon sewage tank, sampled water directly from the springs in San Pellegrino, Italy, and Poland Spring, Maine, and carried water on his head for 3 km with a group of Indian villagers.
Fishman’s previous book, the New York Times bestseller The Wal-Mart Effect, was the first to crack open Wal-Mart’s wall of secrecy, and has become the standard for understanding Wal-Mart’s impact on our economy and on how we live. The Economist named it a “book of the year.”
Fishman is a former metro and national reporter for the Washington Post, and was a reporter and editor at the Orlando Sentinel and the News & Observer in Raleigh, NC. Since 1996, he has worked for the innovative business magazine Fast Company. Fishman has won numerous awards, including three times receiving UCLA’s Gerald Loeb Award, the most prestigious award in business journalism.
Fishman grew up in Miami, Florida, and went to Harvard. He lives outside Philadelphia with his wife, also a journalist, their two children, their two Labradors, and their two parakeets. He likes his water from the refrigerator spigot, with ice, or splashing across the bow of a Sunfish.
In the course of reporting about water to write The Big Thirst, Fishman has stood at the bottom of a half-million-gallon sewage tank, sampled water directly from the springs in San Pellegrino, Italy, and Poland Spring, Maine, and carried water on his head for 3 km with a group of Indian villagers.
Fishman’s previous book, the New York Times bestseller The Wal-Mart Effect, was the first to crack open Wal-Mart’s wall of secrecy, and has become the standard for understanding Wal-Mart’s impact on our economy and on how we live. The Economist named it a “book of the year.”
Fishman is a former metro and national reporter for the Washington Post, and was a reporter and editor at the Orlando Sentinel and the News & Observer in Raleigh, NC. Since 1996, he has worked for the innovative business magazine Fast Company. Fishman has won numerous awards, including three times receiving UCLA’s Gerald Loeb Award, the most prestigious award in business journalism.
Fishman grew up in Miami, Florida, and went to Harvard. He lives outside Philadelphia with his wife, also a journalist, their two children, their two Labradors, and their two parakeets. He likes his water from the refrigerator spigot, with ice, or splashing across the bow of a Sunfish.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 288 reviews
August 7, 2023
"From the day President [John F.] Kennedy delivered his 'to the Moon' speech in May 1961, until the day [astronauts] Armstrong and Aldin stepped on the Moon in July 1969, was 98 months. It took NASA 98 months to go from not knowing how to fly in space at all to walking on the Moon." -- on page 336
. . . and what a long (or is it actually short?) strange trip it was! Fishman's extensively detailed One Giant Leap belongs on a recent short list - along with Kurson's excellent Rocket Men and Swift's oddly entertaining Across the Airless Wilds - of interesting space exploration books centering occasionally on the sometimes offbeat trials of NASA's several Apollo missions (circa 1968-1972) to the Moon. Fishman's work focuses more on the needed technology and engineering required and developed by NASA and several private contractors during the 1960's - in part because of President Kennedy's solemn but also intense declaration to land a man on the Moon by the end of that decade - and how amazingly things came together just in the nick of time for that historic summer of '69 lunar landing of Apollo 11. Probably my favorite moment was learning of the astronauts visiting a Raytheon manufacturing facility in Massachusetts - which produced the specially durable cables, ropes, and wiring needed for various parts of the spacecrafts - on a goodwill tour of sorts, and said astronauts being all but being adopted (and respectfully but charmingly referred to as "our boys") by motherly working-class women performing the exacting hand-weaving/threading assemblage of the parts.
. . . and what a long (or is it actually short?) strange trip it was! Fishman's extensively detailed One Giant Leap belongs on a recent short list - along with Kurson's excellent Rocket Men and Swift's oddly entertaining Across the Airless Wilds - of interesting space exploration books centering occasionally on the sometimes offbeat trials of NASA's several Apollo missions (circa 1968-1972) to the Moon. Fishman's work focuses more on the needed technology and engineering required and developed by NASA and several private contractors during the 1960's - in part because of President Kennedy's solemn but also intense declaration to land a man on the Moon by the end of that decade - and how amazingly things came together just in the nick of time for that historic summer of '69 lunar landing of Apollo 11. Probably my favorite moment was learning of the astronauts visiting a Raytheon manufacturing facility in Massachusetts - which produced the specially durable cables, ropes, and wiring needed for various parts of the spacecrafts - on a goodwill tour of sorts, and said astronauts being all but being adopted (and respectfully but charmingly referred to as "our boys") by motherly working-class women performing the exacting hand-weaving/threading assemblage of the parts.
August 10, 2019
"No other act of human exploration ever laid a plaque saying We come in peace for all mankind."
--Neil deGrasse Tyson--
Released to coincide with the 50-year anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 moon walk, One Giant Leap tells the story of how a nation is challenged to do the impossible. As a young boy with his model Saturn V rocket and detachable lunar module in hand, I was among the 600 MILLION viewers who stayed up until 11pm on July 20, 1969 to see Neil Armstrong take a giant leap for mankind. Nations from around the globe, particularly free nations who opposed communism, cheered the astronauts on. However, few realize the daunting challenges which were overcome to make this event happen. This book does an amazing job of laying it all out there, without getting bogged in technicalities.
In the early 1960s, on the heel of embarrassments of Russia being the first country to venture into space, as well as the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba, JFK stuck out his (political) neck by challenging the US to put a man on the moon before 1970. We know from private tapes that JFK actually had little interest in space exploration. However, he felt very strongly that America couldn't afford to let the communists plant the first flag on the moon. We must remember that many nations, particularly in Asia and South America, were on the fence in deciding between communism and democracy. JFK took on this costly endeavor, despite opposition within his own Democratic party - which preferred that the $billions be spent on domestic needs.
Then there was the technology. When JFK announced the mission, none were more surprised than NASA. Russian canines had more spacetime experience than Americans! We didn't have the rockets, launchpads, spacesuits or computers which would need to be designed. We did have Wernher von Braun, the famous Nazi rocket engineer. But no one could fathom what it would take to send a rocket to the moon, land on the moon, take off from the moon, and land on earth. Each of these required massive amounts of fuel. In fact, you needed more fuel to lift the massive tanks (of fuel) out of the atmosphere. Then a clever, but ridiculed, NASA engineer came up with the notion of Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR), which allowed huge weight/fuel savings.
Then there was designing a computer required to make complicated orbital mechanics calculations. Keep in mind that at the time this was all being designed, 96% of Americans were still using rotary-dial phones. Few people had actually flown in an airplane, as commercial airlines were just being formed. Computers were the size of rooms. NASA wanted one which would fit into a one-foot cube. "Software" was unsophisticated. This was the age of transistor tubes. So, NASA programmed with "hardware" - for every 0 or 1 of a program, there was a wire needed (over 500,000 in total), all weaved together in a complicated nest by a specially-trained group of women.
Space navigation was an unknown skill. Orbital rendezvous, in particular, was counterintuitive. Unlike what pilots were accustomed to, aiming your vessel at on orbiting spaceship and applying rocket force to narrow the gap generally has the opposite effect. Ironically, the correct maneuver would likely be to instead slow down, which drops you into a lower orbit and caused your vessel to speed up! This is above my pay grade.
Then there's the political will of a nation, weary of Vietnam and struggling with civil rights. Ironically, if JFK wasn't assassinated, it's likely we wouldn't have landed on the moon. The death of our fallen president become the rally cry to achieving his goal. One Giant Leap brings the climate of the times and the challenges of this goal to life.
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to give my unbiased review of this excellent book.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson--
Released to coincide with the 50-year anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 moon walk, One Giant Leap tells the story of how a nation is challenged to do the impossible. As a young boy with his model Saturn V rocket and detachable lunar module in hand, I was among the 600 MILLION viewers who stayed up until 11pm on July 20, 1969 to see Neil Armstrong take a giant leap for mankind. Nations from around the globe, particularly free nations who opposed communism, cheered the astronauts on. However, few realize the daunting challenges which were overcome to make this event happen. This book does an amazing job of laying it all out there, without getting bogged in technicalities.
In the early 1960s, on the heel of embarrassments of Russia being the first country to venture into space, as well as the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba, JFK stuck out his (political) neck by challenging the US to put a man on the moon before 1970. We know from private tapes that JFK actually had little interest in space exploration. However, he felt very strongly that America couldn't afford to let the communists plant the first flag on the moon. We must remember that many nations, particularly in Asia and South America, were on the fence in deciding between communism and democracy. JFK took on this costly endeavor, despite opposition within his own Democratic party - which preferred that the $billions be spent on domestic needs.
Then there was the technology. When JFK announced the mission, none were more surprised than NASA. Russian canines had more spacetime experience than Americans! We didn't have the rockets, launchpads, spacesuits or computers which would need to be designed. We did have Wernher von Braun, the famous Nazi rocket engineer. But no one could fathom what it would take to send a rocket to the moon, land on the moon, take off from the moon, and land on earth. Each of these required massive amounts of fuel. In fact, you needed more fuel to lift the massive tanks (of fuel) out of the atmosphere. Then a clever, but ridiculed, NASA engineer came up with the notion of Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR), which allowed huge weight/fuel savings.
Then there was designing a computer required to make complicated orbital mechanics calculations. Keep in mind that at the time this was all being designed, 96% of Americans were still using rotary-dial phones. Few people had actually flown in an airplane, as commercial airlines were just being formed. Computers were the size of rooms. NASA wanted one which would fit into a one-foot cube. "Software" was unsophisticated. This was the age of transistor tubes. So, NASA programmed with "hardware" - for every 0 or 1 of a program, there was a wire needed (over 500,000 in total), all weaved together in a complicated nest by a specially-trained group of women.
Space navigation was an unknown skill. Orbital rendezvous, in particular, was counterintuitive. Unlike what pilots were accustomed to, aiming your vessel at on orbiting spaceship and applying rocket force to narrow the gap generally has the opposite effect. Ironically, the correct maneuver would likely be to instead slow down, which drops you into a lower orbit and caused your vessel to speed up! This is above my pay grade.
Then there's the political will of a nation, weary of Vietnam and struggling with civil rights. Ironically, if JFK wasn't assassinated, it's likely we wouldn't have landed on the moon. The death of our fallen president become the rally cry to achieving his goal. One Giant Leap brings the climate of the times and the challenges of this goal to life.
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to give my unbiased review of this excellent book.
August 23, 2019
Overall, this was a fascinating look into America’s emergence into the space age. I appreciated the holistic approach this book took, by not only providing a thorough overview of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon, but also enumerating the many steps it took to get there (starting from the historical, political and technological context and the programs proceeding it) as well as how the program affected technology and American culture.
One negative aspect of this book is that at times, the author would string together a long series of statistics without much intervening explanation or context. While this information was often interesting overall, it did start to get overwhelming. There were also several instances where the content started getting repetitive. In addition, the author often jumped around the chronology to explore a theme rather than the next step in history. While overall this added a dynamic and in depth sense to the book, at other times it felt haphazard or uncoordinated.
Despite these downsides, One Giant Leap offers a unique approach to presenting the Apollo space program, and is definitely worth the read.
——
Three times as many people worked on Apollo was on the Manhattan project
In 1966, five years after JFK formally announce the project, Nas I was spending $1 million every three hours 24 hours a day on the Apollo project. By comparison, they only spent $1 million total in 1961.
There was surprisingly little public support for the moon landing. In 1960 for a pole show that only 26% of Americans thought we should go all out to make the Russians to the moon.
Apollo eight orbited the moon in 1968, making America the first country to reach the Moon
Four weeks after Apollo eight mission, a Paul show that only 39% of Americans favored up moon landing. 55% of Americans said they didn’t think the space program was worth a $4 billion a year it cost it
The space shuttle program shut down in 2011; and 2018 in order for American astronauts to go to space we have to pay for tickets on a Russian shuttle which is only slightly improved be on the technological capabilities of the shuttles that went up in like the 1960s.
94% of US households watched the Apollo moon landing on TV. However, the interest quickly deteriorated as if you were people watched the Apollo 17 mission, the last Apollo mission and watch that weeks episode of all in the family.
The Apollo computer fit into one cubic foot of space and did it calculations practically instantaneously; this was an astonishing feet of engineering because at the beginning of that decade, computers took up entire rooms and took hours for days to do their calculations.
The Russians were the first ones to send a satellite into orbit around the earth, have a satellite reach the moon, have an unmanned craft land on the moon and place a flag, send a satellite to take pictures of the Darkside of the moon, launch animals into space and bring them back safely, and launch a man to orbit. This all happened before JFK was elected president, most of it happening in the late 1950s with the dogs and the astronaut occurring in 1960
Every pound of supplies on the lunar module required 3lbs of fuel at takeoff, which is why they didn’t give the Eagle lunar module lots of extra fuel
The navigation and guidance computer for the lunar module was able to instantly do the difficult calculations to navigate space, but had less computing power than most microwave ovens today
The MIT engineers who created the real time computing module for the lunar landing module had to do so using a computer that did its calculations from punchcards that took hours or days to calculate
Apollo 11 was the first time that human lives were placed in the hands of a computer
The Apollo computer had 73 kB of memory which is less than the average email size today. The computer had two millions of 1% of the computing capacity of an iPhone XS
In space, if you’re going to the moon and your course is off by 0.5°, then you end up 2100 miles out space, off by the distance of the diameter of the moon.
It takes about 65 hours to fly back from the moon to earth. When you’re getting close to re-entering the atmosphere, you’re going 7 mi./s and the reentry zone is only 40 miles wide, so there’s absolutely no room for error.
When NASA selected the company that would be building the lunar module, the company asked MIT how big the computer would be. At that point am I T had no idea how big the computer with me so they just guessed it would be about a cubic foot; keep in mind that at this time most computers were the size of an entire room. Once it was complete, the computer and it up being just over one cubic foot. When MIT made the one cubic foot guesstimate, the materials for the computer filled four refrigerator sized racks.
When NASA was designing a probe to go to Venus, they had one error in the handwritten calculations that were put on a punchcard for the ground computer that ended up making the rocket not able to calculate its course and aborted mission. Hey single bar going to the-was missing over in a bar that would’ve change the equation, A mistake that cost $18.5 million. It was the mariner one probe.
Every hour of Apollo space flight required 1 million hours of work on the ground
There were 589,824 wires in the Apollo 11 computer, each one related to either a 1 (threaded through a ring magnet) or a 0 (next to the magnet). Each was threaded by hand. Because of the time-consuming nature of this software coding, the software had to be complete 8-12 weeks before launch and no changes could be made.
During the 1960s in the lead up to the Apollo program, Nassau went from the government agency with the 10th largest budget to the one with the third largest budget
In a secretly taped meeting with the heads of NASA, Kennedy admitted that he wasn’t really interested in space exploration/travel, he just wanted to beat the Russians to the moon
There was a loss of support and funding in the months leading up to Kennedy‘s assassination because people didn’t see the reason why so much money should be in funneled towards the lunar program to try and force a man landing on the moon by 1970 because it really didn’t seem like we needed to be in such a rush to beat the Russians anymore. However, Lyndon B Johnson was an authentic believer in the space program and reignited the vigor for getting a man to the moon by 1970 and requested the necessary funds to do self following Kennedy‘s assassination. “There is no second class ticket to space.”
The exit strategy from the lunar module was almost a rope with knots on it that the astronauts would have to clamber up and down to get in and out of the module. It ended up being a ladder in the end because there were too many potential issues with the rope (what if one astronaut was injured and couldn’t haul themselves up? What if they were too tried for the extremely strenuous task of hauling themselves up while wearing a bulky spacesuit? What if they fell? Etc.)
The idea of doing a lunar rendezvous which involves taking just the lunar module down to the moon and having a rendezvous back up with the main spaceship was text initially look down on us too difficult or impossible because of how difficult and unknown space style rendezvous‘s are because of gravitational mechanics. However that ended up being the method they went with because it allowed the shuttle that landed on the moon to have to carry significantly less weight and therefore less fuel, and it’s also easier to land the module than an entire space shuttle.
The company that made the lunar modules was a fighter jet making company in World War II; during World War II they made 14 warplanes a day; and contrast it took them 10 years to make 14 lunar modules.
Apollo didn’t usher in the space age, but it did usher in the digital age. We would have eventually made the technological leaps that were made because of the Apollo missions, but they gave America and excitement about technology and probably help speed up the process but it would’ve otherwise gone.
From start to finish, Apollo cost $19.4 billion; in 2019, dollars, that’s equivalent to $125.4 billion
Just because time, money and resources went into the winter project, doesn’t mean that it was necessarily taking away from other items; for example, it’s not like money was taken away from the defense or education budget to fund the winter program. Even if the winter program hadn’t happened the money that has been allocated to it would not have ended up going to cancer research or education or what have you because it wasn’t earmarked for that and they weren’t even in the same category.
One negative aspect of this book is that at times, the author would string together a long series of statistics without much intervening explanation or context. While this information was often interesting overall, it did start to get overwhelming. There were also several instances where the content started getting repetitive. In addition, the author often jumped around the chronology to explore a theme rather than the next step in history. While overall this added a dynamic and in depth sense to the book, at other times it felt haphazard or uncoordinated.
Despite these downsides, One Giant Leap offers a unique approach to presenting the Apollo space program, and is definitely worth the read.
——
Three times as many people worked on Apollo was on the Manhattan project
In 1966, five years after JFK formally announce the project, Nas I was spending $1 million every three hours 24 hours a day on the Apollo project. By comparison, they only spent $1 million total in 1961.
There was surprisingly little public support for the moon landing. In 1960 for a pole show that only 26% of Americans thought we should go all out to make the Russians to the moon.
Apollo eight orbited the moon in 1968, making America the first country to reach the Moon
Four weeks after Apollo eight mission, a Paul show that only 39% of Americans favored up moon landing. 55% of Americans said they didn’t think the space program was worth a $4 billion a year it cost it
The space shuttle program shut down in 2011; and 2018 in order for American astronauts to go to space we have to pay for tickets on a Russian shuttle which is only slightly improved be on the technological capabilities of the shuttles that went up in like the 1960s.
94% of US households watched the Apollo moon landing on TV. However, the interest quickly deteriorated as if you were people watched the Apollo 17 mission, the last Apollo mission and watch that weeks episode of all in the family.
The Apollo computer fit into one cubic foot of space and did it calculations practically instantaneously; this was an astonishing feet of engineering because at the beginning of that decade, computers took up entire rooms and took hours for days to do their calculations.
The Russians were the first ones to send a satellite into orbit around the earth, have a satellite reach the moon, have an unmanned craft land on the moon and place a flag, send a satellite to take pictures of the Darkside of the moon, launch animals into space and bring them back safely, and launch a man to orbit. This all happened before JFK was elected president, most of it happening in the late 1950s with the dogs and the astronaut occurring in 1960
Every pound of supplies on the lunar module required 3lbs of fuel at takeoff, which is why they didn’t give the Eagle lunar module lots of extra fuel
The navigation and guidance computer for the lunar module was able to instantly do the difficult calculations to navigate space, but had less computing power than most microwave ovens today
The MIT engineers who created the real time computing module for the lunar landing module had to do so using a computer that did its calculations from punchcards that took hours or days to calculate
Apollo 11 was the first time that human lives were placed in the hands of a computer
The Apollo computer had 73 kB of memory which is less than the average email size today. The computer had two millions of 1% of the computing capacity of an iPhone XS
In space, if you’re going to the moon and your course is off by 0.5°, then you end up 2100 miles out space, off by the distance of the diameter of the moon.
It takes about 65 hours to fly back from the moon to earth. When you’re getting close to re-entering the atmosphere, you’re going 7 mi./s and the reentry zone is only 40 miles wide, so there’s absolutely no room for error.
When NASA selected the company that would be building the lunar module, the company asked MIT how big the computer would be. At that point am I T had no idea how big the computer with me so they just guessed it would be about a cubic foot; keep in mind that at this time most computers were the size of an entire room. Once it was complete, the computer and it up being just over one cubic foot. When MIT made the one cubic foot guesstimate, the materials for the computer filled four refrigerator sized racks.
When NASA was designing a probe to go to Venus, they had one error in the handwritten calculations that were put on a punchcard for the ground computer that ended up making the rocket not able to calculate its course and aborted mission. Hey single bar going to the-was missing over in a bar that would’ve change the equation, A mistake that cost $18.5 million. It was the mariner one probe.
Every hour of Apollo space flight required 1 million hours of work on the ground
There were 589,824 wires in the Apollo 11 computer, each one related to either a 1 (threaded through a ring magnet) or a 0 (next to the magnet). Each was threaded by hand. Because of the time-consuming nature of this software coding, the software had to be complete 8-12 weeks before launch and no changes could be made.
During the 1960s in the lead up to the Apollo program, Nassau went from the government agency with the 10th largest budget to the one with the third largest budget
In a secretly taped meeting with the heads of NASA, Kennedy admitted that he wasn’t really interested in space exploration/travel, he just wanted to beat the Russians to the moon
There was a loss of support and funding in the months leading up to Kennedy‘s assassination because people didn’t see the reason why so much money should be in funneled towards the lunar program to try and force a man landing on the moon by 1970 because it really didn’t seem like we needed to be in such a rush to beat the Russians anymore. However, Lyndon B Johnson was an authentic believer in the space program and reignited the vigor for getting a man to the moon by 1970 and requested the necessary funds to do self following Kennedy‘s assassination. “There is no second class ticket to space.”
The exit strategy from the lunar module was almost a rope with knots on it that the astronauts would have to clamber up and down to get in and out of the module. It ended up being a ladder in the end because there were too many potential issues with the rope (what if one astronaut was injured and couldn’t haul themselves up? What if they were too tried for the extremely strenuous task of hauling themselves up while wearing a bulky spacesuit? What if they fell? Etc.)
The idea of doing a lunar rendezvous which involves taking just the lunar module down to the moon and having a rendezvous back up with the main spaceship was text initially look down on us too difficult or impossible because of how difficult and unknown space style rendezvous‘s are because of gravitational mechanics. However that ended up being the method they went with because it allowed the shuttle that landed on the moon to have to carry significantly less weight and therefore less fuel, and it’s also easier to land the module than an entire space shuttle.
The company that made the lunar modules was a fighter jet making company in World War II; during World War II they made 14 warplanes a day; and contrast it took them 10 years to make 14 lunar modules.
Apollo didn’t usher in the space age, but it did usher in the digital age. We would have eventually made the technological leaps that were made because of the Apollo missions, but they gave America and excitement about technology and probably help speed up the process but it would’ve otherwise gone.
From start to finish, Apollo cost $19.4 billion; in 2019, dollars, that’s equivalent to $125.4 billion
Just because time, money and resources went into the winter project, doesn’t mean that it was necessarily taking away from other items; for example, it’s not like money was taken away from the defense or education budget to fund the winter program. Even if the winter program hadn’t happened the money that has been allocated to it would not have ended up going to cancer research or education or what have you because it wasn’t earmarked for that and they weren’t even in the same category.
July 2, 2019
I loved reading this book! The explanation of the science and will to succeed that led to the moon landings is enhanced by the context of history, before, during and after the Apollo years. I was almost 10 years old at the time of Apollo 11 and I remember staying up late to watch the landing on TV. This book illuminates many things I was too young to understand at the time and makes a great argument for regarding the Apollo mission as an amazing success. Highly recommended.
September 13, 2019
Amazing book that looks at more than just the moon missions. How the jump in technology affected the everyday lives of Americans was extremely interesting.
🚀🌜🛰🌛🛸
🚀🌜🛰🌛🛸
October 2, 2020
Very interesting and readable book about the Apollo program and its legacy.
The first chapters give us the societal and political context at the end of the 50s, review the accomplishments of the Soviet space program, Gagarin’s flight and Kennedy’s response. They also give some evidence that, though strongly supporting the moon project in public, Kennedy was not so keen on it in private, and as criticism mounted and his second term election approached, he was pondering cutting its budget.
But the most captivating chapters are about building the computers, when MIT decided to use integrated circuits (rejected at the time by IBM for his business aimed computers due to cost) and caused their price to decrease by a factor of 1000 in 6 years; about the navigation software for Apollo and the lunar module being hardwired by hand in factories by women following the programmers’ instructions; about the decision of sending a single rocket or adding a lunar module, at a time where it was not known how to rendezvous two space vehicles; and about the construction and meticulous testing of the lunar module.
The last chapter makes the case that Apollo was so much ahead of its time that we are still not done catching up with it, in terms of space exploration. Critics at the time said there was no need for a race, but that it would be better to plan methodically- which is what NASA has been doing since, disproving their point. On the contrary, Apollo’s impact has been enormous but often overlooked because it happened here on Earth and its consequences are now part of daily life, instead of materializing in manned space travel and bases on other planets.
The first chapters give us the societal and political context at the end of the 50s, review the accomplishments of the Soviet space program, Gagarin’s flight and Kennedy’s response. They also give some evidence that, though strongly supporting the moon project in public, Kennedy was not so keen on it in private, and as criticism mounted and his second term election approached, he was pondering cutting its budget.
But the most captivating chapters are about building the computers, when MIT decided to use integrated circuits (rejected at the time by IBM for his business aimed computers due to cost) and caused their price to decrease by a factor of 1000 in 6 years; about the navigation software for Apollo and the lunar module being hardwired by hand in factories by women following the programmers’ instructions; about the decision of sending a single rocket or adding a lunar module, at a time where it was not known how to rendezvous two space vehicles; and about the construction and meticulous testing of the lunar module.
The last chapter makes the case that Apollo was so much ahead of its time that we are still not done catching up with it, in terms of space exploration. Critics at the time said there was no need for a race, but that it would be better to plan methodically- which is what NASA has been doing since, disproving their point. On the contrary, Apollo’s impact has been enormous but often overlooked because it happened here on Earth and its consequences are now part of daily life, instead of materializing in manned space travel and bases on other planets.
April 18, 2022
I read this book over the course of three days. It is well-written, but you do get bombarded with an awful lot of information. It is fact-dense. Having said that, it looks at the lead up to the first moon landing. Things we take for granted now, such as smart phones and iPads, make the computing power of those moon missions literally prehistoric. The astronauts have a role in this book, but the scientists, engineers, and technicians are front and center. A good story for those interested in technology.
September 5, 2019
(3.5 Stars) (Audiobook) This book is one of many that has hit the shelves in the days/months leading up to the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landings. This work takes the approaches of trying to debunk or clarify much of the mythology and misconceptions surrounding the Apollo 11 mission. To do that, Fishman takes the reader on a survey of the history of US manned space flight, describing the advancements of the USSR and how it drove the US towards the goal of putting a man on the moon. Yet, such an endeavor was hardly an easy action. For getting men on the moon, and being able to get them back safely, the US needed to develop new technologies, needed tons of money and a lot of political will to make it happen. The US did, but it took a lot of work, and it was not always a certainty that the US could do it. Kennedy didn't embrace space in the way his speeches did, the idea of using a lunar module was not a given, and the nation was not always "all-in" on this quest.
Fishman does offer good insight and a lot of detailed stories. Yet, he tends to jump around in the work. He starts out chronological, but then will jump around to address various themes, discussing events and actions that occurred long after Apollo 11...only to then go back to cover a different theme, and jump around in the chronological order. This somewhat scattershot organization of the work could make it hard to follow at times, and weakens the overall rating.
The audiobook reader is solid, neither adding to or detracting from the work. There are a plethora of books out there about Apollo 11. I don't know if I could say that this work falls under the cliche "if you only read one book...", but this is a solid read that will offer a good balance of technical, political and personal histories.
Fishman does offer good insight and a lot of detailed stories. Yet, he tends to jump around in the work. He starts out chronological, but then will jump around to address various themes, discussing events and actions that occurred long after Apollo 11...only to then go back to cover a different theme, and jump around in the chronological order. This somewhat scattershot organization of the work could make it hard to follow at times, and weakens the overall rating.
The audiobook reader is solid, neither adding to or detracting from the work. There are a plethora of books out there about Apollo 11. I don't know if I could say that this work falls under the cliche "if you only read one book...", but this is a solid read that will offer a good balance of technical, political and personal histories.
October 19, 2019
Wow, what a story.
August 1, 2019
One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon by Charles Fishman is a book that chronicles the Apollo program responsible for the manned lunar landing in the late 1960s. One Giant Leap is a tour de force, covering everything from the social and civil unrest which serves as the backdrop to the story, to the behind the scenes politics leading to the conception and funding of the Apollo program, and complete with a deep technical introspective into the challenges and solutions in making it a reality. It can be easy to forget that the development of any piece of technology is performed by engineers. The Apollo program was no exception and One Giant Leap covers the human element superbly. One key technical consideration chronicled by One Giant Leap was that of the Rendezvous. It was not feasible to have a monolithic spacecraft perform the entire mission. It must be broken down into smaller sections, but where and when these pieces would separate and recombine was major point of contention within NASA. One Giant Leap adroitly covers this topic and its resolution. Like the Apollo program itself, One Giant Leap is not without its blemishes. Most glaringly is the large amount of repetition between chapters. For example, the interference caused by the lunar landing radar is described in depth multiple times which appears to be an editing oversight. Also, the MIT guidance and control computer is given the lion’s share of the technical spotlight which should have been spread over a broader set of the Apollo systems and components. One Giant Leap is an excellent read which serves as a sobering reminder: If we can put a man on the moon, what problem is really to large to overcome?
June 14, 2019
Having so recently read Shoot for the Moon by James Donovan, there will be a few comparisons, but overall, these were very different books. SftM was a linear narrative and I was emotionally vested, where OGL was much more technical and political. The first chapter introduces the world to the decade in which the space program was born. “The eight years from Kennedy’s speech to Armstrong’s first steps were as transformative as any eight-year period in post-World War II American history…” The dawn of the 1960’s saw technology associated with military applications, but NASA would change that. “The race to the Moon took developments and technologies and trends… and magnified them, accelerated them, and helped make their significance and value clear well beyond space travel.”
As I said, the narrative doesn’t take us from the beginning of the decade through the end of Apollo. Rather, each chapter addresses different components or problems that needed to be solved and the individuals who contributed to Apollo’s success. And throughout it all is the immediacy to beat the Russians in the space race. “…Americans don’t associate the Moon landings with the Cold War or see them as a dramatic victory over the Soviet Union… But the race to the Moon was born in the Cold War and wouldn’t have happened when it did, with the urgency it did, without it.”
I would say the main theme was how much NASA influenced the technology we have come to take for granted today. There is an entire chapter devoted to the intricacies of the computer and its development. “The Apollo computer had .000002 percent of the computing capacity of the phone in your pocket: two-millionths of 1 percent.” Yet at the time it was the most sophisticated computer ever built. The impact NASA had on integrated circuit chips alone is astounding. In hindsight, it’s hard to fathom that, “The needs of a spaceship computer were just two or three years ahead of the sophisticated technology necessary to make it.”
Of course, I loved the trivial tidbits that I read about. I didn’t realize that Playtex (the bra company) designed the space suits. And did you know there was porn on the moon during Apollo 12? The anecdote about GM insisting on designing the lunar rover was cool considering it lead to the discovery of the Genesis Rock (go ahead, Google it, it’s fascinating).
The book concluded by disputing the idea that the money spent on the space program could have been better spent on more worthwhile things like fighting poverty or funding education. In comparing it to the far more expensive Vietnam War (especially considering the cost of human life), “Apollo was a success,” where Vietnam was a failure. “It was a demonstration of American technological prowess, a demonstration of engineering and manufacturing excellence; it was a reminder of American economic power and also American determination.” I appreciate that Shoot for the Moon gave me more background on the program prior to reading this because it helped me to better grasp the intricacies that One Great Leap presented.
I received a complimentary copy of this book via the Amazon Vine program.
As I said, the narrative doesn’t take us from the beginning of the decade through the end of Apollo. Rather, each chapter addresses different components or problems that needed to be solved and the individuals who contributed to Apollo’s success. And throughout it all is the immediacy to beat the Russians in the space race. “…Americans don’t associate the Moon landings with the Cold War or see them as a dramatic victory over the Soviet Union… But the race to the Moon was born in the Cold War and wouldn’t have happened when it did, with the urgency it did, without it.”
I would say the main theme was how much NASA influenced the technology we have come to take for granted today. There is an entire chapter devoted to the intricacies of the computer and its development. “The Apollo computer had .000002 percent of the computing capacity of the phone in your pocket: two-millionths of 1 percent.” Yet at the time it was the most sophisticated computer ever built. The impact NASA had on integrated circuit chips alone is astounding. In hindsight, it’s hard to fathom that, “The needs of a spaceship computer were just two or three years ahead of the sophisticated technology necessary to make it.”
Of course, I loved the trivial tidbits that I read about. I didn’t realize that Playtex (the bra company) designed the space suits. And did you know there was porn on the moon during Apollo 12? The anecdote about GM insisting on designing the lunar rover was cool considering it lead to the discovery of the Genesis Rock (go ahead, Google it, it’s fascinating).
The book concluded by disputing the idea that the money spent on the space program could have been better spent on more worthwhile things like fighting poverty or funding education. In comparing it to the far more expensive Vietnam War (especially considering the cost of human life), “Apollo was a success,” where Vietnam was a failure. “It was a demonstration of American technological prowess, a demonstration of engineering and manufacturing excellence; it was a reminder of American economic power and also American determination.” I appreciate that Shoot for the Moon gave me more background on the program prior to reading this because it helped me to better grasp the intricacies that One Great Leap presented.
I received a complimentary copy of this book via the Amazon Vine program.
August 5, 2025
Probably my favorite book of 2025 thus far. I love space exploration and space history, and I realized as I started listening to One Giant Leap that I don't think I've ever read a history of the Apollo program that covers it all from start to finish. Just bits and bobs around individual characters or flights.
One Giant Leap provides the outline to the Apollo program that I was looking for, but (mercifully, perhaps!) it's not a step-by-step read. We don't open with the day Kennedy said "Let's go to the moon" and end with the final astronaut stepping off the moon after the Apollo 17 mission. Well, I mean, we kinda do - but it's in the in-between stuff that Charles Fishman takes an interesting tack.
Instead of a detailed timeline, Fishman explores the Apollo missions from a cultural/historical viewpoint. How were these missions artifacts of their time? How could they have happened at this time and no other - and what was their significance within that time? Fishman spends a good deal of the end of One Giant Leap simply explaining why the Moon missions mattered. You wouldn't think this is a question that needs answering, but Fishman reveals why it absolutely does.
Along with the 10,000 foot view, Fishman gets out the microscope, detailing the unexplored aspects of the Apollo program. For example, the inertial guidance systems that Doc Draper developed in the 1950s as a method for a self-flying plane ultimately led to the onboard computers that took the astronauts to the Moon. And those computers! The Apollo computers basically birthed the microchip and modern computing.
The one thing that some readers might miss in One Giant Leap is the traditional dose of (heavily masculine) astronaut heroism. There's plenty of heroism here, but it's mostly the scientists and engineers and thousands upon thousands of other individuals making sure those astronauts lived to tell the tale. I found that difference from traditional NASA literature heartening - it's the regular folks who make stuff work! Fishman does a splendid job of driving this point home.
All told, One Giant Leap is absolutely thrilling, from it's big numbers explanations of just how hard everyone had to work to do something that had never been done before to its minute details, like how the initial Moon landing was suffused with errors and alerts that had NASA and the astronauts on edge even as no one at home was the wiser. If you have any interest in space, read this book.
One Giant Leap provides the outline to the Apollo program that I was looking for, but (mercifully, perhaps!) it's not a step-by-step read. We don't open with the day Kennedy said "Let's go to the moon" and end with the final astronaut stepping off the moon after the Apollo 17 mission. Well, I mean, we kinda do - but it's in the in-between stuff that Charles Fishman takes an interesting tack.
Instead of a detailed timeline, Fishman explores the Apollo missions from a cultural/historical viewpoint. How were these missions artifacts of their time? How could they have happened at this time and no other - and what was their significance within that time? Fishman spends a good deal of the end of One Giant Leap simply explaining why the Moon missions mattered. You wouldn't think this is a question that needs answering, but Fishman reveals why it absolutely does.
Along with the 10,000 foot view, Fishman gets out the microscope, detailing the unexplored aspects of the Apollo program. For example, the inertial guidance systems that Doc Draper developed in the 1950s as a method for a self-flying plane ultimately led to the onboard computers that took the astronauts to the Moon. And those computers! The Apollo computers basically birthed the microchip and modern computing.
The one thing that some readers might miss in One Giant Leap is the traditional dose of (heavily masculine) astronaut heroism. There's plenty of heroism here, but it's mostly the scientists and engineers and thousands upon thousands of other individuals making sure those astronauts lived to tell the tale. I found that difference from traditional NASA literature heartening - it's the regular folks who make stuff work! Fishman does a splendid job of driving this point home.
All told, One Giant Leap is absolutely thrilling, from it's big numbers explanations of just how hard everyone had to work to do something that had never been done before to its minute details, like how the initial Moon landing was suffused with errors and alerts that had NASA and the astronauts on edge even as no one at home was the wiser. If you have any interest in space, read this book.
April 25, 2022
4.5 stars
.
I've been craving a good space book and this really hit the spot.
.
I never get tired of reading and learning about the space race. This book has a ton of information, both about the program and the political climate of the day.
.
If you love space history, this is a book for you. I listened to the audiobook and found it to be fantastic.
.
I've been craving a good space book and this really hit the spot.
.
I never get tired of reading and learning about the space race. This book has a ton of information, both about the program and the political climate of the day.
.
If you love space history, this is a book for you. I listened to the audiobook and found it to be fantastic.
July 10, 2019
Now that I’ve reached the age when I am in the minority of humanity that actually lived the moon landing I needed an inspiration to truly revive my enjoyment and awe of the accomplishment.
The author reminds us of the ultimate goal that was a perfect storm of Cold War, paranoia, scientific and cutting edge technology and the journey’s amazing place in history.
Living through the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo programs I was living the dream as a kid, building the models and corresponding with Gordon Cooper one of the astronauts.
Fishbern sets the moon landing in context of social, political and educational standards and teaches us the “why” we went so fast, and so insistently.
Great read for those who lived it and a great historical recap of one of our great achievements.
The author reminds us of the ultimate goal that was a perfect storm of Cold War, paranoia, scientific and cutting edge technology and the journey’s amazing place in history.
Living through the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo programs I was living the dream as a kid, building the models and corresponding with Gordon Cooper one of the astronauts.
Fishbern sets the moon landing in context of social, political and educational standards and teaches us the “why” we went so fast, and so insistently.
Great read for those who lived it and a great historical recap of one of our great achievements.
November 9, 2021
I really liked this. While it's probably a bit too technical for some, I enjoyed the nitty gritty details of what went into our flight to the moon 50 years ago. It truly is remarkable that our nation was able to do it despite not knowing how at the start of the sixties (and with a computer that had less memory than modern kitchen appliances. And so much of our current digital age can be attributed to the Apollo missions and the technology we developed and perfected to get to the moon. Cool to think about.
January 20, 2020
The acclaimed journalist Charles Fishman has written a thoughtful examination of the legacy of the Apollo program, released in time for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 last year. The book feels quite fresh, because instead of simply rehashing the often told stories about the astronauts' experiences, Fishman highlights the contributions of the lesser known figures. Although the astronauts are usually the center of attention, he shifts the focus to people such as those at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who designed the groundbreaking computers, and the women in Waltham, Massachusetts who assembled the core rope memory for the computers, without which the flights would not have succeeded. The book also feels fresh because Fishman adds his insights into how Apollo changed the world that we live in. Although humans are not currently walking on the Moon or Mars, he explains how Apollo helped to usher in the digital era by demonstrating what computers with integrated circuits are capable of accomplishing (with the government serving as a customer for integrated circuits during the Apollo era, their price dramatically fell while their capability expanded throughout the 1960s, helping to lay the framework for our era of personal computers). Apollo also demonstrated what humans are capable of accomplishing when they have a clarity of purpose and the resources to succeed, which is a lesson we should apply in the 21st century. Although I found the book a bit hard to follow, I did enjoy reading and very much agree with insights such as these.
August 19, 2019
I went in expecting a play-by-play of the events leading up to and surrounding Neal Armstrong's famous words, but I got so much more. One Giant Leap provides not only a good overview of the moon missions, but a fascinating behind the scenes look at 1960s era NASA as a whole. From international geopolitical analysis and awe-inspiring stories to plain old domestic politics and amusing anecdotes, this book has it all. I learned a lot and came away with a new appreciation for everything it took to land the Eagle on the lunar surface.
Through a coordinated effort of hundreds of thousands, NASA started from less than zero and ended up with a grand testament to the indomitable human spirit and desire to discover. They didn't even know what they didn't know about what you needed to know to fly to the moon, but they learned. The biggest thing I take from this book is that we as a country, and even as individuals, can do big, daunting things that appear impossible. We need some of the spirit that drove Kennedy to say "We choose to go to the moon...and to do these other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
Through a coordinated effort of hundreds of thousands, NASA started from less than zero and ended up with a grand testament to the indomitable human spirit and desire to discover. They didn't even know what they didn't know about what you needed to know to fly to the moon, but they learned. The biggest thing I take from this book is that we as a country, and even as individuals, can do big, daunting things that appear impossible. We need some of the spirit that drove Kennedy to say "We choose to go to the moon...and to do these other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
August 23, 2019
Fascinating book about the history of the mission that flew us to the moon. The book goes into details about the space race, from Sputnik through the last moon mission, Apollo 17. Since I lived through this entire period, a lot of what is talked about in the book I already knew about, but there was also many details about what went on behind the scenes that I either did not know, or had forgotten. Perhaps I am prejudiced because I have always had such an interest and fascination with our space program, but I loved this book, both for re-living one of the most incredible accomplishments in human history, and for learning some new things about it. I still get a bit of a lump in my throat when I hear the phrase, "Houston, Tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed." If you are like me and have a love and appreciation for the space program, you will enjoy this book.
January 12, 2022
Picked this book up in a bargain bin and I’m glad I did. If you want to learn about the USA’s project to land a man on the moon, this is the story. It’s the story of mankind’s greatest project, and that holds true even to today. The Apollo project not only landed men on the moon, but was the catalyst in making the integrated circuit the foundation of most of today’s technology from mobile phones to computers to the internet. And it wasn’t easy. Off to a poor second place in the space race, it succeeded in spite of an environment where it’s funding was controversial, the math to accomplish it had to be invented and numerous technologies has to be invented. Inspiring, informative and very readable, I highly recommend it.
August 14, 2019
I really liked the chapters written about technical and behind the scene stuff : for example, Apollo Guidance Computer, the Lunar Module, the rover. However, the first three chapters are more about the social and political environment which led President Kennedy to announce that the USA will put a man on the moon before the end of the 60s. To me, it seemed that there was a lot of repetition on those first chapters that could have been summarized better. In short, a very interesting read about Apollo.
September 27, 2019
Excellent read. Not your typical recounting of all the Apollo missions - the chapters were more like individual vignettes about an aspect of the space program, some which had not been explored in all the reading I've done about it in the last year or two... My favorite quote:
That's the sense in which the culture of manned space travel helped lay the groundwork for the Digital Age. Space didn't get us ready for space; it got us ready for the world that was coming to Earth.
June 7, 2020
Having lived through men walking on the moon, this book needs to be read by everyone who has not.
The vision, engineering innovation and technology development at a time when we had no business doing what we did, is absolutely unthinkable and incredible.
Just as incredible is how we can take this accomplishment for granted today.
At a cost of $20 billion the return on investment from going to the moon is immeasurable.
The book did a great job of simplifying the complexity we faced, and the greatest achievement ever encountered by man.
The vision, engineering innovation and technology development at a time when we had no business doing what we did, is absolutely unthinkable and incredible.
Just as incredible is how we can take this accomplishment for granted today.
At a cost of $20 billion the return on investment from going to the moon is immeasurable.
The book did a great job of simplifying the complexity we faced, and the greatest achievement ever encountered by man.
December 17, 2019
Very well organized book about the whole history of NASA and the space program and the race to the moon. Made you feel proud, yet again to be an American. Loved the little stories throughout of everyday people doing extraordinary things!
July 6, 2019
So many things I either didn't know or had forgotten about this time in history. It certainly left me with a lot to think about...
September 9, 2020
I listened to this book on audible. It is a wonderful history of space travel.
May 29, 2024
Read for the 2024 PopSugar reading challenge. This is "A book with the word "leap" in the title."
This was written and published to coincide with the 50th anniversary year of the Apollo 11 mission that landed men on the moon. Based on the title and subtitle, as well as the description of this book on this website, I was expecting most of it to be focused on the scientific and technical levels of making the Apollo program happen, with the benefit of decades having passed so that history is more visible than it was when it was closer to what was the present day.
It's not that book. There are long segments that focus on scientific or technical questions, such as how the American space program was able to puzzle out and gain practical experience in orbital mechanics that allowed for the lunar orbit rendezvous that made the landings possible, and how the idea of lunar orbit rendezvous pierced the bureaucratic inertia of a NASA that did not believe it was a feasible solution given early 1960s understandings of the science of face.
There are just as long segments that focus on matters of political or even cultural history - setting the table for what made President Kennedy hone in on the Space Race as a source of inspiring rhetoric and an object that could restore some national pride, even while apparently in private Kennedy was repeatedly not all that excited about it and possibly by the time he was assassinated even looking for a graceful way to back out of the commitment to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Parts of the book discuss the way that the pursuit of the moon landings was part of what helped transform the idea of "technology" as something that really might be able to help out people's lives, rather than just a series of military research things that were putting an apocalyptic vision of the future out there.
I liked both aspects of the book. The internal insight into NASA was fascinating, going into the design of the computer and how this was unlike anything else that existed at the time, to the point that integrated circuits that have long since been common were side-stepped by IBM at the time that Apollo was ramping up. One description of a 1953(ish) classified military flight with a computer the size of a washing machine, designed by MIT, absolutely blew my mind because this flight autopiloted from Boston to Los Angeles using only that computer's inertial navigation programming. Like, wait a second, complete autopilot existed 70 years ago? I liked learning about an administrator named Bill Tindall and his circulating memos that were dubbed "Tindallgrams" in which he zeroed in on a variety of problems big and small, including, after the lunar flights had begun, continuously reminding people of the importance of not having any unscheduled dumps of waste into space since this altered the trajectory of the craft and made all of the math slightly wrong. The story of the design and inclusion of the lunar rover that was used in Apollos 15-17 is almost unbelievable.
Having finished the book, I feel like Fishman had two main goals in writing it which touch on but aren't directly connected to what actually happened with the space program. One, he had the goal of addressing critics who feel that, with the passing of time, the Apollo program was kind of a disappointment. This is viewed in the form of scientific critics who had grander dreams of space exploration noting that if you were going to design a program to maximize that, Apollo's laser focus on manned lunar landings was not the right way to do this. It's also viewed through kind of a cultural lens. There are also apparently critics he is addressing who feel like it was all a waste and the money should have been spent on other things for the betterment of society instead. This last bit almost seems like the classic Twitter "making up a guy to get mad at" thing, or maybe I'm just biased because I've always thought space was cool and I feel like the moon landings were generally rad as fuck and an awesome thing that any American can be proud of to this very day. To those critics, real or imagined, Fishman cites the total cost of the Apollo program to the total cost (just in dollars) of the Vietnam War, and I think that should pretty much settle any argument with that guy, if he exists.
The second goal, I feel, is kind of a call to action to Americans as a sort of reminder of our ability to tackle big challenges with a substantial mobilization on the societal level. This includes thoughts on how quickly "if we can put a man on the moon" emerged as a phrase in American culture, years before we'd actually successfully put the men on the moon, and on civil rights protestors who were present the day before the Apollo 11 launch with signs about how the money would be better spent on Earth instead. My wife and I had a lot of moon landing anniversary content on our DVR over the course of the summer of 2019 and this appearance was not news to me since it was in one of those programs. It's a good reminder that while the Apollo program is an American triumph it's not a triumph that was as connected to Black citizens of America.
Fishman relates that the NASA guy who talked to these protestors, Thomas Paine (really), recorded in a memo later that he felt they should hitch their wagon to the Apollo rockets with the message that if we can do this, surely we can solve these other problems. Again, I think he pretty quickly dismantles any "why not spend money on X instead?" comments with the wry note that the people who say that don't usually want to spend any money on X other thing.
I wonder whether Fishman remains as optimistic about the potential of America to come together to solve big problems now as when he published the book. After experiencing the COVID pandemic and seeing the way that it played out here and the way that its chief legacy seems to be that whacko Republicans are leading charges against any vaccinations, I don't feel very confident about solving problems. There are just too many people out there who are going to refuse to do anything if it is even the slightest bit inconvenient for them.
Like, essentially all that we were asked to do was stay at home. Do nothing. There was sacrifice in that for everyone, in different ways. We all (who chose to be conscientious) lost time with loved ones that cannot be gotten back. For me, this was not getting to see my niece and nephew, who were 3 and 1.5 at the time COVID hit and in whose lives I had been at least a weekly presence up to that point. I did not get to see my grandmother in the day before she passed away in May 2020 because only one family member was allowed to be with her and that person (my aunt) wasn't allowed to leave once she arrived. I had the stress of wondering whether my job (writing about baseball) would stop paying me because there was no baseball. There was no anything. I recognize this is comparatively light and many people were hit harder - people whose jobs did stop, and others whose jobs suddenly became "essential workers" and they had to shoulder the burden of getting sick with a disease for which there was no vaccine and only an emerging understanding of how to treat its severe forms, without a clear idea of what made a person more at risk.
I think for everybody who grew up getting fed the "greatest generation" hagiography - generally about growing up during the Depression and then fighting World War II, though a lot of these people were also involved in political or bureaucratic leadership by the time the Apollo program got rolling - the COVID pandemic was basically our moment. Many, many people tried to do the best that they could to keep not only themselves and their loved ones safe, but also people they did not know and would never know, in a horrible and continually evolving crisis. That much is inspiring. But there were so many selfish people who refused to do anything at all - starting at the very top, with the Republican president who would never accept the severity of the pandemic because he thought it would make him look bad, and flowing down to his cult followers who eventually raged against the idea of wearing a mask in public indoor spaces or of getting two little shots to protect themselves and others from dying. Their lack of care harmed communities all over the country by prolonging the worst periods of suffering, and I will hate them for it forever. The one good thing for American society that the former guy achieved - presiding over the rapid development of a safe and effective COVID vaccine - is the one thing he'll never take credit for, because the freaks who are his most passionate supporters hate it. I think these selfish people are a distinct minority, and that much is heartening, but in raw number terms there are enough of them that they damaged any attempt to really solve the problems of COVID in both the pre- and post-vaccine periods. In a nation of 340 million or so people, even if your "basket of deplorables" is only 10% (and I think it's much larger) that's still 34 million people and they can mess up a lot of attempts to solve any problem. When the problem is "you might be unknowingly sick and you might breathe the virus on other people who are more vulnerable than you" that's a lot of cracks in any possible wall of solidarity, if you even have a federal government run by a Democrat who is both interested in and able to try to build a wall of solidarity, which of course in COVID times there was only the former guy. It is visible in government right now with the nihilistic faction of Republicans in Congress (again, maybe about 10% of the body) who want to refuse to have any money ever spent on anything that might make a poor or even middle class person's life better than it is right now.
Put a man on the moon? Or solve any problem that requires such a societal mobilization? You couldn't even get these people to put on a mask when there were refrigerated trailers needed to store the rapidly-growing pile of bodies that overwhelmed the normal system for dealing with the deceased, or to get a couple of shots when these shots were the thing that enabled the normal existence to resume for everyone. And as the progression of this year's presidential campaign shows, only four years later, you can't even get middle-of-the-road voters to believe in comfortable enough numbers in electorally significant states that none of the pro-COVID psychos should ever be allowed to wield any power again. I liked this book but I'm much more pessimistic about the call to action and conclusion the author has written than I might have been at the time he wrote it.
This was written and published to coincide with the 50th anniversary year of the Apollo 11 mission that landed men on the moon. Based on the title and subtitle, as well as the description of this book on this website, I was expecting most of it to be focused on the scientific and technical levels of making the Apollo program happen, with the benefit of decades having passed so that history is more visible than it was when it was closer to what was the present day.
It's not that book. There are long segments that focus on scientific or technical questions, such as how the American space program was able to puzzle out and gain practical experience in orbital mechanics that allowed for the lunar orbit rendezvous that made the landings possible, and how the idea of lunar orbit rendezvous pierced the bureaucratic inertia of a NASA that did not believe it was a feasible solution given early 1960s understandings of the science of face.
There are just as long segments that focus on matters of political or even cultural history - setting the table for what made President Kennedy hone in on the Space Race as a source of inspiring rhetoric and an object that could restore some national pride, even while apparently in private Kennedy was repeatedly not all that excited about it and possibly by the time he was assassinated even looking for a graceful way to back out of the commitment to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Parts of the book discuss the way that the pursuit of the moon landings was part of what helped transform the idea of "technology" as something that really might be able to help out people's lives, rather than just a series of military research things that were putting an apocalyptic vision of the future out there.
I liked both aspects of the book. The internal insight into NASA was fascinating, going into the design of the computer and how this was unlike anything else that existed at the time, to the point that integrated circuits that have long since been common were side-stepped by IBM at the time that Apollo was ramping up. One description of a 1953(ish) classified military flight with a computer the size of a washing machine, designed by MIT, absolutely blew my mind because this flight autopiloted from Boston to Los Angeles using only that computer's inertial navigation programming. Like, wait a second, complete autopilot existed 70 years ago? I liked learning about an administrator named Bill Tindall and his circulating memos that were dubbed "Tindallgrams" in which he zeroed in on a variety of problems big and small, including, after the lunar flights had begun, continuously reminding people of the importance of not having any unscheduled dumps of waste into space since this altered the trajectory of the craft and made all of the math slightly wrong. The story of the design and inclusion of the lunar rover that was used in Apollos 15-17 is almost unbelievable.
Having finished the book, I feel like Fishman had two main goals in writing it which touch on but aren't directly connected to what actually happened with the space program. One, he had the goal of addressing critics who feel that, with the passing of time, the Apollo program was kind of a disappointment. This is viewed in the form of scientific critics who had grander dreams of space exploration noting that if you were going to design a program to maximize that, Apollo's laser focus on manned lunar landings was not the right way to do this. It's also viewed through kind of a cultural lens. There are also apparently critics he is addressing who feel like it was all a waste and the money should have been spent on other things for the betterment of society instead. This last bit almost seems like the classic Twitter "making up a guy to get mad at" thing, or maybe I'm just biased because I've always thought space was cool and I feel like the moon landings were generally rad as fuck and an awesome thing that any American can be proud of to this very day. To those critics, real or imagined, Fishman cites the total cost of the Apollo program to the total cost (just in dollars) of the Vietnam War, and I think that should pretty much settle any argument with that guy, if he exists.
The second goal, I feel, is kind of a call to action to Americans as a sort of reminder of our ability to tackle big challenges with a substantial mobilization on the societal level. This includes thoughts on how quickly "if we can put a man on the moon" emerged as a phrase in American culture, years before we'd actually successfully put the men on the moon, and on civil rights protestors who were present the day before the Apollo 11 launch with signs about how the money would be better spent on Earth instead. My wife and I had a lot of moon landing anniversary content on our DVR over the course of the summer of 2019 and this appearance was not news to me since it was in one of those programs. It's a good reminder that while the Apollo program is an American triumph it's not a triumph that was as connected to Black citizens of America.
Fishman relates that the NASA guy who talked to these protestors, Thomas Paine (really), recorded in a memo later that he felt they should hitch their wagon to the Apollo rockets with the message that if we can do this, surely we can solve these other problems. Again, I think he pretty quickly dismantles any "why not spend money on X instead?" comments with the wry note that the people who say that don't usually want to spend any money on X other thing.
I wonder whether Fishman remains as optimistic about the potential of America to come together to solve big problems now as when he published the book. After experiencing the COVID pandemic and seeing the way that it played out here and the way that its chief legacy seems to be that whacko Republicans are leading charges against any vaccinations, I don't feel very confident about solving problems. There are just too many people out there who are going to refuse to do anything if it is even the slightest bit inconvenient for them.
Like, essentially all that we were asked to do was stay at home. Do nothing. There was sacrifice in that for everyone, in different ways. We all (who chose to be conscientious) lost time with loved ones that cannot be gotten back. For me, this was not getting to see my niece and nephew, who were 3 and 1.5 at the time COVID hit and in whose lives I had been at least a weekly presence up to that point. I did not get to see my grandmother in the day before she passed away in May 2020 because only one family member was allowed to be with her and that person (my aunt) wasn't allowed to leave once she arrived. I had the stress of wondering whether my job (writing about baseball) would stop paying me because there was no baseball. There was no anything. I recognize this is comparatively light and many people were hit harder - people whose jobs did stop, and others whose jobs suddenly became "essential workers" and they had to shoulder the burden of getting sick with a disease for which there was no vaccine and only an emerging understanding of how to treat its severe forms, without a clear idea of what made a person more at risk.
I think for everybody who grew up getting fed the "greatest generation" hagiography - generally about growing up during the Depression and then fighting World War II, though a lot of these people were also involved in political or bureaucratic leadership by the time the Apollo program got rolling - the COVID pandemic was basically our moment. Many, many people tried to do the best that they could to keep not only themselves and their loved ones safe, but also people they did not know and would never know, in a horrible and continually evolving crisis. That much is inspiring. But there were so many selfish people who refused to do anything at all - starting at the very top, with the Republican president who would never accept the severity of the pandemic because he thought it would make him look bad, and flowing down to his cult followers who eventually raged against the idea of wearing a mask in public indoor spaces or of getting two little shots to protect themselves and others from dying. Their lack of care harmed communities all over the country by prolonging the worst periods of suffering, and I will hate them for it forever. The one good thing for American society that the former guy achieved - presiding over the rapid development of a safe and effective COVID vaccine - is the one thing he'll never take credit for, because the freaks who are his most passionate supporters hate it. I think these selfish people are a distinct minority, and that much is heartening, but in raw number terms there are enough of them that they damaged any attempt to really solve the problems of COVID in both the pre- and post-vaccine periods. In a nation of 340 million or so people, even if your "basket of deplorables" is only 10% (and I think it's much larger) that's still 34 million people and they can mess up a lot of attempts to solve any problem. When the problem is "you might be unknowingly sick and you might breathe the virus on other people who are more vulnerable than you" that's a lot of cracks in any possible wall of solidarity, if you even have a federal government run by a Democrat who is both interested in and able to try to build a wall of solidarity, which of course in COVID times there was only the former guy. It is visible in government right now with the nihilistic faction of Republicans in Congress (again, maybe about 10% of the body) who want to refuse to have any money ever spent on anything that might make a poor or even middle class person's life better than it is right now.
Put a man on the moon? Or solve any problem that requires such a societal mobilization? You couldn't even get these people to put on a mask when there were refrigerated trailers needed to store the rapidly-growing pile of bodies that overwhelmed the normal system for dealing with the deceased, or to get a couple of shots when these shots were the thing that enabled the normal existence to resume for everyone. And as the progression of this year's presidential campaign shows, only four years later, you can't even get middle-of-the-road voters to believe in comfortable enough numbers in electorally significant states that none of the pro-COVID psychos should ever be allowed to wield any power again. I liked this book but I'm much more pessimistic about the call to action and conclusion the author has written than I might have been at the time he wrote it.
July 20, 2019
Landing human beings on the surface of the moon is such an unfathomable achievement that even today, 50 years after it happened, the event has an almost science fiction surrealism to it. When we want to convey the sharpest critique of our failings on Earth we invoke our greatest achievement in space by calling on the phrase “if we can go to the moon, we should be able to...” And isn’t that odd? Shouldn’t our space travel capability be so far advanced now, half a century later, that we look back on the Apollo missions with a kind of whimsical nostalgia? Pride, sure. But shouldn’t it be something akin to watching the Wright Brothers flight at Kitty Hawk and thinking “my, how far we’ve come!” With the moon landings its different. Five decades on, we’ve yet to do better than the awkward, spider-like lunar lander and puffy white space suits. In “One Giant Leap,” author Charles Fishman explores how our leap to the moon manages to exist in the American consciousness as both our most iconic achievement and - because of our inability to move beyond it - as a lasting letdown.
October 17, 2020
This was a great look at human thought process-- people trying to imagine all the unknown unknowns and creating layers of contingency plans. Never heard many of these stories before. Little things like dust on the moon, how to fly a flag in zero atmosphere, rendezvous flight dynamics in space, so many leaps of imagination that forced engineering to evolve, whole new fields of computer science created.
I'm sold that Apollo left a legacy so much greater than velcro and Tang. This was fine research and storytelling.
I'm sold that Apollo left a legacy so much greater than velcro and Tang. This was fine research and storytelling.
July 31, 2020
After reading the first chapter of this book, I wasn’t sure I would finish it. It felt like much of the book would be beyond my grasp. In deciding to soldier on I gained an appreciation of the effort and determination it took to not only design and build a spaceship to get to the moon but the ingenuity involved, all in a decade’s time. President Kennedy didn’t live to see the reality of landing on the moon or the benefits of such an endeavor which was a shame. His leadership motivated the US to accomplish the impossible. To those who thought the money spent was wasted please read this book. Not only did the space program seal our dominance in the world of space exploration but it brought about the digital age. We need another leader such as Kennedy and another goal to get behind to unite our country again.
February 5, 2024
One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon by Charles Fishman is a fascinating history book and it's also incredibly accessible. I'm especially interested in this time period and part of history, so I've been eyeing this for quite some time. I'm glad I finally decided to read it because the author did a great job of laying things out. I love that it gives the reader a broad look at not only the events themselves, but the wider context as well. The only aspect I wasn't as much of a fan of that the author does go into statistics and numbers, some of which could have used greater clarification at some points.
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