CHASING THE MOON: How America Beat Russia in the Space Race

"3... 2... 1... We have lift off!" It was thirty two minutes past the hour and Apollo 11 saw humanity take a giant leap forward as the mission took off, shown on live television across the world. From 1903 when man was considering places "a place beyond the sky", to the "space age" between 1964 and 1966 and the "final frontier" between 1970 and 1979, this book offers readers the history of our journey from Cape Canaveral to the Moon. Transport yourself to 16 July, 1969: the day that saw nearly a million people gathered in Florida to wave off the first humans flying of to try and land on the moon, 239,000 miles away, and on which the US space team would beat the Russians who had been first to launch an artificial satellite, to fly past the Moon and the first orbit around the earth (during a 180-minute flight). Relive the excitement (and stress) of the landing as Neil Armstrong hovered above the Moon's surface to gently find the best landing spot more than half a minute passed the projected touchdown time and with the descent engine's fuel running dangerously low as it only had a few seconds of propellant remaining - all while Houston remained out of the know until Armstrong announced on the transmitter "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed". Learn about figures such as John F Kennedy, President of the United States, who realised that publicising flights on television would transform America's attitude towards spaceflight the way it had towards politics during the Cold War, and Wernher von Braun in the early days of the US space programme, the German rocket engineer who experimented with confiscated German V-2s on test range at White Sands, New Mexico, launching them as high as one hundred miles above the Earth. There also stunning photographs to pique the imagination, from the iconic image of Buzz Aldrin on the lunar surface with Armstrong reflected in the mirror visor and the portrait of a grinning Armstrong in the lunar module after landing on the moon, to an action shot of the first Saturn V moon rocket being launched into space on 9 November 1967, astronaut Ed White floating at zero gravity after becoming the first American to walk in space during the June 1965 Gemini 4 mission, and an amusing image of what a human settlement on the Moon in 2024 may look like as part of the General Motors' Futurama exhibit at the 1964 - 1965 New York World's Fair. Soar above the Earth with this brilliant history that collates Cold War history, American politics and epic space travel in this fascinating book. Paperback, colour and black and white photographs, 370pp.