One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon .9781501106309

Name: One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon .9781501106309
Brand: Simon & Schuster

Simon & Schuster

The New York Times bestselling, \u201Cmeticulously researched and absorbingly written\u201D (The Washington Post) story of the trailblazers and the ordinary Americans on the front lines of the epic Apollo 11 moon mission.\nPresident John F. Kennedy astonished the world on May 25, 1961, when he announced to Congress that the United States should land a man on the Moon by 1970. No group was more surprised than the scientists and engineers at NASA, who suddenly had less than a decade to invent space travel.\nWhen Kennedy announced that goal, no one knew how to navigate to the Moon. No one knew how to build a rocket big enough to reach the Moon, or how to build a computer small enough (and powerful enough) to fly a spaceship there. No one knew what the surface of the Moon was like, or what astronauts could eat as they flew there. On the day of Kennedy\u2019s historic speech, America had a total of fifteen minutes of spaceflight experience\u2014with just five of those minutes outside the .