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Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon
As the world observes the 25th anniversary of the first man on the moon, this exciting book tells the gripping story of the engineers who answered President Kennedy's challenge and devoted their lives to accomplishing the impossible. "A fascinating book . . . about what Americans can achieve with vision and teamwork."--Buzz Aldrin.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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434 people want to read
About the author
Mike Gray
5 books1 followerHarold Michael "Mike" Gray (October 26, 1935 – April 30, 2013)[1] was an American writer, screenwriter, cinematographer, film producer and director.
Gray's books include:
The Warning (1982), about the accident at Three Mile Island
Drug Crazy: How we got into this mess and how we can get out (1998)
Angle of Attack (1992), a biography of Harrison Storms which also details America's race to the moon
The Death Game: The luck of the draw (2003)
Busted (2004), a book about the USA's drug war
- Wikipedia
Gray's books include:
The Warning (1982), about the accident at Three Mile Island
Drug Crazy: How we got into this mess and how we can get out (1998)
Angle of Attack (1992), a biography of Harrison Storms which also details America's race to the moon
The Death Game: The luck of the draw (2003)
Busted (2004), a book about the USA's drug war
- Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
October 13, 2013
This is an analogue of Tracy Kidder's The Soul of a New Machine applied to the Apollo project, specifically to the aerospace engineers at North American Aviation who worked on the second stage of the Saturn V rocket and on the Apollo Command and Service Module. They built amazing things! The second stage of the rocket carried liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen; the two should never come into contact, since the boiling points of the two gases are 70 Kelvins apart. Instead of installing two separate tanks, the stage had a common bulkhead with a honeycomb plasticized synthetic cloth structure for insulation. There were no standard manufacturing techniques for forming curved metal sections of the bulkhead, so the engineers formed them with underwater explosions. A huge vacuum bell lifted the bottom of the liquid hydrogen tank over the honeycomb. They tested that the two metal sheets were bonded to the honeycomb by transmitting high-frequency sound through a water jet; on the other side, a receiver picked up the sound through another water jet. The 10-meter-diameter stage had welds that had to be accurate to the third of a millimeter. When they were building the command module, they anticipated that one parachute out of three might fail (which actually happened on the Apollo 15 mission); if the capsule hit the quiet sea bottom-on, it might break apart and sink. Instead of beefing up the capsule, the engineers did a Monte Carlo simulation with different height of waves, speed of waves, angle of the capsule during the splashdown, and so on; they realized that the worst case was very unlikely, and did not change the capsule.
These people were working 60-hour weeks; they knew that it was the time of their lives. The wife of one engineer divorced him because she and the kids never saw him awake; the judge said, "No man could work that hard." The wife of the chief engineer emptied several tranquilizer bottles; after she recovered, he bought her an 8,300-square-foot mansion as a sign of remorse. He later had a heart attack.
The anticlimactic point of the book is the fire in the command module during a launch pad test of the Apollo Saturn-204 mission, later redesignated Apollo 1, which killed three astronauts. Because of corporate miscommunications, the people testing flammability did not realize that just before and after launch, the capsule would be filled with pure oxygen at slightly higher than atmospheric pressure! The chief engineer was fired, the capsule was redesigned, and the Apollo project proceeded.
These people were working 60-hour weeks; they knew that it was the time of their lives. The wife of one engineer divorced him because she and the kids never saw him awake; the judge said, "No man could work that hard." The wife of the chief engineer emptied several tranquilizer bottles; after she recovered, he bought her an 8,300-square-foot mansion as a sign of remorse. He later had a heart attack.
The anticlimactic point of the book is the fire in the command module during a launch pad test of the Apollo Saturn-204 mission, later redesignated Apollo 1, which killed three astronauts. Because of corporate miscommunications, the people testing flammability did not realize that just before and after launch, the capsule would be filled with pure oxygen at slightly higher than atmospheric pressure! The chief engineer was fired, the capsule was redesigned, and the Apollo project proceeded.
January 9, 2021
I bought this book because my uncle had been an engineer who worked with North American Aviation/Rockwell International from 1962 to 1992. He worked from the beginning of the Apollo program through the first half of the space shuttle program. He died of leukemia in 1992 at the relatively young age of 54, and I was never able to ask him about all the great stories from his career at that company.
This book, therefore, serves as a kind of surrogate. Although it does not name any of the guys on the shop floor who put together the Apollo spacecraft, this is still about as close as I'll get to the stories I might have heard from my uncle.
Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon is partly a portrait of Harrison Storms, the leader of North American's space projects during the 1950s and 1960s, and it's partly a history of North American during those times.
This paperback was published a couple of years after my uncle died. On the day I bought this book, on a summer day in 1994, by complete happenstance I met a man who also worked at North American--although he said he did not remember my uncle. He too was interested in this book. We spoke for a few minutes, and I went away from that chance meeting with my head spinning, wondering about the odds of meeting one of the engineers who might have worked alongside my uncle.
As background, Angle of Attack describes North American's work on the X-15, one of the great aircraft of all time. The X-15 was the company's crowning achievement prior to the Apollo program. That was Storms' first great success, and arguably it was what later helped land North American its Apollo prime contracts.
The centerpiece of the book is North American's work on the Apollo program. Importantly, it gives an overview of the contract proposal process, and how North American positioned itself for success. Within a space of three months, North American won the prime contracts for the Saturn V S-II second stage and the coveted command and service modules. The outcome was controversial. By most accounts, North American should not have won even one prime contract, much less two. A number of other contractors had more experience and what were deemed to be better proposals, so there was a great deal of grumbling about the fact that North American prevailed over proven rivals. A little disappointingly, the book does not dig any deeper to try to answer those tough questions, but rather softly points to the X-15 program as a probable factor which led to those victories.
By 1966, the Apollo program was not a model of success. North American's quality control and work habits gradually deteriorated, and NASA's oversight of the company's work also tailed off considerably. Those factors contributed to the Apollo 204 (aka 'Apollo 1') fire which killed three astronauts in a launch pad test in January 1967.
Apollo 204 ultimately cost the jobs of three significant people in the Apollo program:
** Harrison Storms, North American's Apollo project manager, who was fired not long after Apollo 204 by the company's CEO, Lee Atwood.
** Joseph Shea, NASA's Apollo spacecraft manager, who suffered a nervous breakdown sometime after Apollo 204 and was removed from his managing position.
** NASA administrator James Webb, who resigned under pressure from the White House in 1968, but not until the Apollo program had made necessary improvements and was back on track for reaching the moon by the end of the decade.
The aftermath of Apollo 204 led to comprehensive changes in North American's culture and work habits. The Apollo spacecraft underwent thousands of improvements, and safety standards were revised on every level. NASA's oversight culture was improved significantly, too. (As the former North American engineer told me during that chance meeting in 1994, 'There was plenty of blame to go around.') NASA assigned a 'tiger team' of astronauts--including Frank Borman and Michael Collins--to work daily with engineers at the North American plant in Downey, California. Together they tightened the reins of oversight and worked closely to improve the quality of all the company's work on Apollo.
This is one of the significant books of Apollo history, primarily for its coverage of Apollo 204 and its causes and effects. I do wish it had a broader scope and included more coverage of North American's culture, history, and most importantly why the company prevailed over stronger rivals for two major Apollo contracts. One part of me also wishes I knew more about its CEO, Lee Atwood, because I think Atwood was even more important to the company's success in that period than Harrison Storms was. So while this is an excellent account in many ways, it seems like it's only a piece of the history that needs telling.
This book, therefore, serves as a kind of surrogate. Although it does not name any of the guys on the shop floor who put together the Apollo spacecraft, this is still about as close as I'll get to the stories I might have heard from my uncle.
Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon is partly a portrait of Harrison Storms, the leader of North American's space projects during the 1950s and 1960s, and it's partly a history of North American during those times.
This paperback was published a couple of years after my uncle died. On the day I bought this book, on a summer day in 1994, by complete happenstance I met a man who also worked at North American--although he said he did not remember my uncle. He too was interested in this book. We spoke for a few minutes, and I went away from that chance meeting with my head spinning, wondering about the odds of meeting one of the engineers who might have worked alongside my uncle.
As background, Angle of Attack describes North American's work on the X-15, one of the great aircraft of all time. The X-15 was the company's crowning achievement prior to the Apollo program. That was Storms' first great success, and arguably it was what later helped land North American its Apollo prime contracts.
The centerpiece of the book is North American's work on the Apollo program. Importantly, it gives an overview of the contract proposal process, and how North American positioned itself for success. Within a space of three months, North American won the prime contracts for the Saturn V S-II second stage and the coveted command and service modules. The outcome was controversial. By most accounts, North American should not have won even one prime contract, much less two. A number of other contractors had more experience and what were deemed to be better proposals, so there was a great deal of grumbling about the fact that North American prevailed over proven rivals. A little disappointingly, the book does not dig any deeper to try to answer those tough questions, but rather softly points to the X-15 program as a probable factor which led to those victories.
By 1966, the Apollo program was not a model of success. North American's quality control and work habits gradually deteriorated, and NASA's oversight of the company's work also tailed off considerably. Those factors contributed to the Apollo 204 (aka 'Apollo 1') fire which killed three astronauts in a launch pad test in January 1967.
Apollo 204 ultimately cost the jobs of three significant people in the Apollo program:
** Harrison Storms, North American's Apollo project manager, who was fired not long after Apollo 204 by the company's CEO, Lee Atwood.
** Joseph Shea, NASA's Apollo spacecraft manager, who suffered a nervous breakdown sometime after Apollo 204 and was removed from his managing position.
** NASA administrator James Webb, who resigned under pressure from the White House in 1968, but not until the Apollo program had made necessary improvements and was back on track for reaching the moon by the end of the decade.
The aftermath of Apollo 204 led to comprehensive changes in North American's culture and work habits. The Apollo spacecraft underwent thousands of improvements, and safety standards were revised on every level. NASA's oversight culture was improved significantly, too. (As the former North American engineer told me during that chance meeting in 1994, 'There was plenty of blame to go around.') NASA assigned a 'tiger team' of astronauts--including Frank Borman and Michael Collins--to work daily with engineers at the North American plant in Downey, California. Together they tightened the reins of oversight and worked closely to improve the quality of all the company's work on Apollo.
This is one of the significant books of Apollo history, primarily for its coverage of Apollo 204 and its causes and effects. I do wish it had a broader scope and included more coverage of North American's culture, history, and most importantly why the company prevailed over stronger rivals for two major Apollo contracts. One part of me also wishes I knew more about its CEO, Lee Atwood, because I think Atwood was even more important to the company's success in that period than Harrison Storms was. So while this is an excellent account in many ways, it seems like it's only a piece of the history that needs telling.
December 22, 2019
This was very interesting, and had me on the edge of my seat a few times - in spite of the fact that I knew things had worked out since it's non-fiction. Even though this happened in my lifetime, I was only 4 years old at the time; so the space shuttle disaster is much more real to me. This book brought the whole space program, NASA, and the fear of the Russians alive to me. I remember being afraid during the latter part of the cold war of a nuclear attack - but to have seen Sputnik blinking over my head every night, while we were (apparently) do nothing? I can see where the American people would not have believed we were more technologically advanced and Sputnik was just a blinking, beeping, metal sphere. I'm sure I would have been even more terrified. This book felt like it took a long time to read - at times I would get really engrossed and read what felt like a long time, and discover I'd only read a handful of pages. It was worth it though, and some of the engineering and management that went into this was fascinating. I would recommend that you make a list of the people as you encounter them - I did not and by the end, didn't know many of the people.
#amicrohistory
#amicrohistory
April 29, 2010
I picked up this book because it was listed as one of the bases for the HBO Series, From the Earth to the Moon about the Apollo program. I'm a space junkie, and loved that series, and I loved this book. It's the story of Harrison Storms, who as an aeronautical engineer for North American Aviation, had a key part in designing and construction the Apollo Command Module. But it's not just a tale of triumph and ingenuity, but the tragedy of Apollo One and how it effected Storms. I absolutely loved this book. Especially since it gave us a view on a perspective usually neglected--not that of the astronauts or even NASA, but those in American private enterprise that built the ships that sent Americans to the Moon and back--sometimes at heartbreaking personal cost.
May 17, 2020
I always love these somewhat narrow detailed looks at the major events of history. This book tells the tale of North American's development of the Saturn V stage 2 (S2) and the Command Module under the leadership of Harrison Storms.
I found it fascinating how chaotic and rapidly changing the technical direction of the Saturn development was. I had always had a vision of this being a highly orchestrated and top-down driven engineering development, but this book portrays it as a process of continuous churn and change punctuated by rounds of horse-trading and inter-contractor backbiting. The technical requirements and specifications of the rocket were in continuous flux leading the design to continuously change as it tracked these. And this was all in the days before CAD as we know it. The astounding amount of progress that was made was only possible due to the sheer number of bodies and hours thrown at the problem (hundreds of thousands of engineers, all working extreme hours under incredible stress, causing untold numbers of divorces and heart attacks).
I found it fascinating how chaotic and rapidly changing the technical direction of the Saturn development was. I had always had a vision of this being a highly orchestrated and top-down driven engineering development, but this book portrays it as a process of continuous churn and change punctuated by rounds of horse-trading and inter-contractor backbiting. The technical requirements and specifications of the rocket were in continuous flux leading the design to continuously change as it tracked these. And this was all in the days before CAD as we know it. The astounding amount of progress that was made was only possible due to the sheer number of bodies and hours thrown at the problem (hundreds of thousands of engineers, all working extreme hours under incredible stress, causing untold numbers of divorces and heart attacks).
December 17, 2015
This book is excellent; I've read it twice. It reviews the early Apollo years from the perspective of North American Aerospace, primary contractor for much of the Saturn V rocket. Mike Gray takes the position that when the US Congress needed a scapegoat for Apollo 1 fire, they unfairly found it in the man who had pretty much sacrificed the grand share of his personal life to make Apollo possible. This book is a great read from the perspectives of both technical and human interest. A cautionary tale to those who sacrifice it all for the greater good...
August 30, 2017
A thorough, informative read for those with an interest in the Apollo project. However, the book gushes over its subject at times, and isn't particularly objective. There are elements of hagiography and melodrama, but whether this is a fault or not depends on the reader's outlook. Nevertheless, as an information source, this is a very capable work.
January 31, 2016
Loved it. Great look into the engineering challenges and the associated political & organizational challenges in getting Apollo to the moon. Most Apollo stories focus on the astronauts, this one looks at the hundreds of thousands of others who designed and built the ship the astronauts piloted.
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November 25, 2012An uber-detailed account of one man who made the difference at North American Aviation.
September 14, 2013
This is another one of those books I've read 3 or more times. Very detailed writing of how a bunch of smarties were able to send men to the moon and back in such a short time.
August 26, 2014
Easily one of the best books about the Apollo program. It captures the excitement in a way that most books on this subject fail to do.
November 24, 2023
"A monumental homage to nature's most perfect container, the egg"
Since intelligent life has inhabited this earth, thousands of scientists, engineers and thinkers have pondered long and hard about the moon. That "sonofabitch", as the book calls it, has been out of human reach since humans first laid eyes on it, but amidst the political, social and racial troubles that plagued the United States in the 1960s, one outstanding group managed to get there, and back again.
Amidst this group was one Harrison Storms, a man whose memory has been washed away by the sands of time, forgotten while his peers shine through to the history books. Though the success or failure of a project of this caliber can never be truly attributed to one person, the leadership role he exerted within 'North American, not only on a technical level, but also a diplomatic one, is one of outstanding importance.
Facing pressures from both within and without his organization, and against a ticking clock set by a man consumed by his own ambitions, Storm and his team achieved a feat that a mere decade ago would have seemed nothing short of biblical.
Perhaps on purpose, or maybe for lack of better knowledge, this book has a rather unfortunate climax point focused on the original 'Apollo I' mission. And though that may be rather disappointing for unexpecting readers, so too is the reality of the space race, the countless lives it cost and the many names buried under the sand, with Storm's name among them.
Since intelligent life has inhabited this earth, thousands of scientists, engineers and thinkers have pondered long and hard about the moon. That "sonofabitch", as the book calls it, has been out of human reach since humans first laid eyes on it, but amidst the political, social and racial troubles that plagued the United States in the 1960s, one outstanding group managed to get there, and back again.
Amidst this group was one Harrison Storms, a man whose memory has been washed away by the sands of time, forgotten while his peers shine through to the history books. Though the success or failure of a project of this caliber can never be truly attributed to one person, the leadership role he exerted within 'North American, not only on a technical level, but also a diplomatic one, is one of outstanding importance.
Facing pressures from both within and without his organization, and against a ticking clock set by a man consumed by his own ambitions, Storm and his team achieved a feat that a mere decade ago would have seemed nothing short of biblical.
Perhaps on purpose, or maybe for lack of better knowledge, this book has a rather unfortunate climax point focused on the original 'Apollo I' mission. And though that may be rather disappointing for unexpecting readers, so too is the reality of the space race, the countless lives it cost and the many names buried under the sand, with Storm's name among them.
June 2, 2022
This was a heavily biased account of North American Aviation's building of the Saturn V second stage and Apollo command and service module. Don't get me wrong, it was quite interesting, but the bias was pretty apparent. I was particularly interested in the account of the Apollo 1 fire, which was is what eventually led to Storm's reassignment away from Apollo. The book seems to indicate that the astronaut's use of Velcro in the capsule was more responsible for the fire than any number of the design and manufacturing defects. And the use of the inward opening hatch? Grissom and NASA demanded it. The book goes to great lengths to paint Storms and NAA in the best light possible.
On a side note, I am very annoyed that the author misspells the name of the SM-64 Navaho missile every single time it appears. Also, why would you misquote Grissom from the night of the fire? I understand this was written in 1992, but I hate that this book doesn't even give us an accurate quote during a pivotal event.
On a side note, I am very annoyed that the author misspells the name of the SM-64 Navaho missile every single time it appears. Also, why would you misquote Grissom from the night of the fire? I understand this was written in 1992, but I hate that this book doesn't even give us an accurate quote during a pivotal event.
August 30, 2022
Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon by Mike Gray is an engaging read, somewhere between a popular account and gonzo journalism. Gray uses Harrison Storms and North American Aviation as the context for telling the story of the Apollo program. It’s not simply a biography of Storms. That tale is told in a breezy style that is, nonetheless, founded on solid academic histories plus numerous oral history interviews, twenty-nine of which were conducted by Gray himself. If you’re a student of NASA and the space race and have slogged through the official NASA history volumes, Gray’s account will be a refreshing view of the events. In many ways, likely thanks to the interviews, it is the ”inside” undocumented account that often escapes the more formal histories. It’s comparable to Wolfe’s The Right Stuff and vastly better than Mailer’s Of a Fire on the Moon.
February 27, 2021
Fantastic account of many of the engineering wizards and political hacks behind the Apollo program. As a huge fan of the HBO series "From the Earth to the Moon," I always wondered about Harrison Storms...it's clear that this book had a huge influence on that series.
Does anyone know what other books heavily contributed to that series?
Does anyone know what other books heavily contributed to that series?
June 25, 2024
Gosh I really wanted to like this book but it was just sparse enough on the details to keep it from being an excellent read. A unique perspective on the construction of the Apollo program to be sure, but probably not required reading.
November 30, 2023
I wish I could meet Harrison Storms.
April 29, 2025
I lit up, cursed, raged and cried several times reading this book. If there ever was a book that used metaphor and analogy so masterfully as to make you feel witness to the insane excesses of human ambition, this is it.
December 30, 2019
You don't read this book: you strap yourself in and hold on for the ride. Setting a blistering pace that matches the speed of the moon race itself, Mike Gray recounts the space race from Sputnik to the moon landing. This gripping story portrays the no-nonsense approach taken by early American space pioneers: Man. Moon. Decade-at any cost. Brief instances of sexism (the Saturn V is described in phallic terms) and a false comparison (the Apollo team is compared to Columbus and Ponce de Leon who, although great explorers, are terrible moral examples) dim the brightness of this book a bit. But the scope and clarity of the work remain impressive, delving into every aspect of modern space travel including astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, history, politics, aerodynamics, astrodynamics, and relationships. This book was recommended by aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan at EAA Oshkosh 2019, and I can't recommend it enough.
September 16, 2016
Mike Gray pulls back the curtain for us, revealing what it takes, industrially, to accomplish monumental tasks. And what it takes industrially is, ultimately, what it takes on a very personal, individual level.
The stress, the heart attacks, the divorces - people gave and paid a helluva lot to put humans on the moon and get them back alive.
For me this is a bittersweet story - one of personal loss and one of the initial, gradual decline and evanescence of one of America's greatest aviation/aerospace manufacturers: North American Aviation.
Also, a glimpse of political and corporate opportunism that history will not readily reveal unless writers like Mike Gray give tribute to the forgotten ones, upon whom others' glory rests.
The stress, the heart attacks, the divorces - people gave and paid a helluva lot to put humans on the moon and get them back alive.
For me this is a bittersweet story - one of personal loss and one of the initial, gradual decline and evanescence of one of America's greatest aviation/aerospace manufacturers: North American Aviation.
Also, a glimpse of political and corporate opportunism that history will not readily reveal unless writers like Mike Gray give tribute to the forgotten ones, upon whom others' glory rests.
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December 21, 2012Featured on Skeptically Speaking show #193 on December 21, 2012, on our special Book Review episode. This book was reviewed by Amy Shira Teitel and the review can be heard starting at timestamp 00:55:04. http://skepticallyspeaking.ca/episode...
December 21, 2018
Informative, and at times entertaining, account of America's early space program. It is hard to find well written books on engineering topics but this comes close.
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