Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon
“Robert Kurson tells the tale of Apollo 8 with novelistic detail and immediacy.”—Andy Weir, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Martian and Artemis
By August 1968, the American space program was in danger of failing in its two most important objectives: to land a man on the Moon by President Kennedy’s end-of-decade deadline, and to triumph over the Soviets in space. With its back against the wall, NASA made an almost unimaginable leap: It would scrap its usual methodical approach and risk everything on a sudden launch, sending the first men in history to the Moon—in just four months. And it would all happen at Christmas.
In a year of historic violence and discord—the Tet Offensive, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago—the Apollo 8 mission would be the boldest, riskiest test of America’s greatness under pressure. In this gripping insider account, Robert Kurson puts the focus on the three astronauts and their families: the commander, Frank Borman, a conflicted man on his final mission; idealistic Jim Lovell, who’d dreamed since boyhood of riding a rocket to the Moon; and Bill Anders, a young nuclear engineer and hotshot fighter pilot making his first space flight.
Drawn from hundreds of hours of one-on-one interviews with the astronauts, their loved ones, NASA personnel, and myriad experts, and filled with vivid and unforgettable detail, Rocket Men is the definitive account of one of America’s finest hours. In this real-life thriller, Kurson reveals the epic dangers involved, and the singular bravery it took, for mankind to leave Earth for the first time—and arrive at a new world.
“Rocket Men is a riveting introduction to the [Apollo 8] flight. . . . Kurson details the mission in crisp, suspenseful scenes. . . . [A] gripping book.”—The New York Times Book Review
Reviews (200)
A journey into far more than space.
For me, Robert Kurson's latest brilliant narrative nonfiction is not just a behind-the-scenes exploration of NASA, nor even of the nip-and-tuck race between the Americans and Russians to be the first to explore the moon, but rather a journey into the hearts and minds of three extraordinary individuals, and in so doing, into our own. Kurson has taken his readers on both underwater and space adventures, all with riveting and compelling style. But as I read Rocket Men, I realized that the real journey Kurson was taking us on, perhaps even unwittingly, was into our own subconscious--into the question of what makes us all, in some measure or another, strive to explore against all odds of success, and often at great sacrifice, unchartered terrains. As I learned about Borman, Lovell and Anders, and their bravery, determination and devotion, I was left wondering what I would sacrifice for the chance to see my world from the outside looking in, and whether I would ultimately have the courage to do so.
An American Triumph, and a Storytelling Triumph
Robert Kurson is a master storyteller. In "Rocket Men," he tells the story of the Apollo 8 mission, the first spacecraft to approach the Moon as well as to disappear behind it. This adventure tale reads like something the reader is learning about first-hand. I felt intimately connected to the personalities, the events, the most dramatic moments, and the risk and historic weight of the undertaking. Kurson has figured out just the right balance between amazingly detailed research and a seamless story that never feels stitched together out of hundreds of accounts, documents, etc. If you're not highly familiar with narratives about the space program, you will be amazed at this fascinating world. It's a combination of (1) world geopolitical supremacy on the line, (2) the most advanced science in existence, (3) levels of unprecedented personal risk in the name of country-science-exploration, and (4) the rare kinds of people who become astronauts, live with being married to them, and are responsible for the decisions that determine the astronauts' fate. This is storytelling on a par with Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff," a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction about the earlier phase of the space program. And if you have read books in this genre, you're in for a lot of surprises. (No spoilers here.) It's easy to imagine some drama out of the story of Apollo 11 (the first Moon landing) and Apollo 13 ("Houston, we have a problem ....") or the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters. But this story proves the point that, from the perspective of what's going on IN THE STORY, every one of these missions was high on drama. Kurson's telling of this story makes a compelling argument – even if you don't agree with it, it makes wonderful reading – that Apollo 8 involved unprecedented stakes in the Space Race and the Cold War, and an unprecedented leap in risk combined with an uncharacteristic rush by NASA to put leapfrogging the USSR above caution. "Rocket Men" is a story of an American triumph at a difficult moment in history. Appropriately, it's also a storytelling triumph.
Awesome story of the mission that led directly to the moon landing
When I started this book, I thought, oh boy, this is just a rehash of The Right Stuff and Apollo 13. I’m so glad I stuck with it. The story of the science and personalities involved in this mission is mesmerizing. “Telegrams for the astronauts poured in by the thousands. One, however, stood out from the rest. It came not from a world leader or celebrity or other luminary, but from an anonymous stranger. It had traveled over whites-only lunch counters in the South, through jungles in Vietnam where young men fell, over the coffins of two of the America’s great civil rights leaders. It had blown across streets bloodied by protesters and police, past a segregationist presidential campaign, into radios playing songs of alienation and revolt. It had made its way through ten million American souls who didn’t have enough to eat, alongside generations that no longer trusted each other, into a White House where a no-longer-loved president slept. It read: THANKS. YOU SAVED 1968.”
The Best Book Ever Written About Apollo 8
I just finished “Rocket Men”. It is a rare thing for me to sit and read a book in a few days but that is what I did with this wonderful book. I have read a lot of books about the space program and even about Apollo 8 to the point that I was not finding anything new or interesting anymore. However, "Rocket Men" is like a whole new story of Apollo 8 and I especially loved the new things I learned from it such as the story behind the picture of the execution from Vietnam, Bobby Kennedy, and other such tidbits that spiced up the adventure of Apollo 8. Telling the story of the three wives was intriguing. I had never read about Lovell’s mistake with the navigation. After all the space books I have read I can honestly say that this is absolutely one of the very best ever produced.
Great read, especially in 2018
Part political/techno thriller, part family drama, and part grand adventure story, this is a tightly written and fascinating account of a singular, defining event in human history. All the elements of a great historical fiction are here, but the state of the world at that time was dramatic enough and needs no embellishment. Instead, Kurston expertly weaves a tale of a nation in turmoil and a group of individuals who, down to the very last of them, were placed just as they needed to be at that particular moment in history in order to accomplish one of mankind's greatest triumphs. This is a story of an epic voyage into what then was truly unknown. It would not have been possible without the rare combination of ferocious competence, grim determination, unshakable devotion, and nerves of absolute steel that were manifest not only in the three crewmembers of Apollo 8, but also in their management, their support structure, and especially their families. Together, they saw the immensity of the challenge that lay before them, and with skill, perseverance, and daring in equal measure, they pulled off an incredible feat that the country, and indeed the entire world, desperately needed. And it is to us, 50 years later, living in a similarly troubled and divided but perhaps more risk-averse world, to rise to meet the challenges we face, as they did. The story of Apollo 8 is, above all else, a tale of hope. If we can get to the moon, we can do anything.
Taut, Dynamic, Thrilling, and True.
Half a century ago, humans first ventured out of earth orbit and to the moon. But it wasn’t on Apollo 11. First came Apollo 8, an audacious leap forward in human exploration, as spacefarers orbited the moon for the very first time, looked down upon its barren and ancient surface, and glimpsed our home planet as a tiny bright oasis in the blackness of space. It is not easy to convey how important this mission was, as it has generally been overshadowed by the Apollo 11 moon landing half a year later. Robert Kurson’s Rocket Men does this story justice. Not only does he describe the mission, we learn about the remarkable people who flew the spacecraft, the risk that NASA managers took to push this flight up the schedule, and the wider story of a nation at a moment of traumatic self-doubt and inner turmoil. The drama of each moment of the mission is conveyed in taut, muscular and dynamic writing that had me eager to know the next moment, even though history already knows how the mission ended. It would have been all too easy to overdo the tension, but Kurson instead clearly conveys what the dangers truly were – it is never overdone. We are fortunate to live in an era when the first people to truly leave earth are still around and were able to relate their mission to Robert Kurson. You’d be unfortunate to miss the chance to read it.
A look at a bit of the US space race...
Robert Kurson's excellent look at the 1968 voyage of Apollo 8, "Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8", has already received excellent reviews on Amazon, so I can add very little. However, I will say that the writing is low-key but compelling as Kurson writes about the politics, the people, and the history of the United States space program. He also details the race - what we knew was happening - between the US and the USSR. The Soviet launch of a moon rocket forced the United States to put forward the Apollo 8 flight well before schedule, so we could go to the moon and circle it. Not actually land - that came later - but to circle it. Even though I know the turnout, I really kept expecting things to fail spectacularly. This is a book for any armchair historian and/or science junkie. I also think it would make a great Audible book and I've already preordered the Audible version at the good price of $14.
An incredible book that makes you feel like you were taken back 60 years ago, watching the Rocket Men of Apollo 8
I really loved this book - it was so fascinating and shared how innovative Apollo 8 was. In our current climate, we constantly think about the Silicon Valley and startups as paradigms of what innovation looks like - but this book, while not intentionally, highlights how the United States acted in an entrepreneurial and resourceful manner in the race to the moon. Furthermore, when people think of the race to the moon they constantly think of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin - but it was these guys who braved out the first mission and orbited space. The sections when they discuss the broadest to the US on Christmas were so exciting to read. I also loved that this book was intriguing and fascinating, and I had the opportunity to learn so many new interesting facts. While the book was informative, it was in no way boring. Often with books like these there is a fine line between being intriguing and being droning - this book mastered it. I would say if you are a purely fiction type of reader, this is probably not for you because it definitely is more factual and at times you might thing it's too scientific or educational (although I think it really achieved the right balance of engaging and educational).
Well written and informative piece of history.
I don’t read very many nonfiction books and I haven’t listened to many audiobooks, but I’m sure that this one will remain one of my favorites in both categories. Before I listened to this book, when I thought of space missions and the moon, I thought of the moon landing and Apollo 11 - the planting of the American flag, Neil Armstrong’s comment “....one giant step for mankind.” While I remember Apollo 8, I had no idea of it’s importance in laying the groundwork for future missions. While I always thought that astronauts as a group were brave, I never really thought about their individual stories, their personalities, the affect on their families, especially their spouses, the intense training or what went into preparing for their mission. Even though I knew the efforts of NASA to prepare, plan, build, test and manage from mission control had to be enormous, I never gave it a lot of thought. I didn’t think a lot about the historical context of these space missions. All of that changed in such an impactful way for me while listening to this absolutely amazing account. I was captivated by the intimate look that I got of the crew - Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders, how they grew up and became astronauts, how they met and fell in love with their wives, how their wives were impacted by what their husbands were doing, the sacrifice of family time. The wives of these men deserve a lot of credit and are heroes in their own right. Their personal stories are moving. I was on the edge of my seat as Kurson so skillfully gave me “a sense of being there”. I was surprised that some of the technical and scientific parts were made understandable and interesting and amazed at the scope of things that went into making decisions. The way the mission is brought into historical context is simply stunning. I hung on every word as the picture is painted of a fractured time in American history with events that I remember- the race to space with Russia, John Kennedy’s dream of landing on the moon, the Vietnam war, civil rights protests, race riots , demonstrations in Chicago, unrest in the country, the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. This book doesn’t just tell us about Apollo 8, it tells the story of our nation in 1968. I loved the Epilogue finding out what the crew did afterwards and where they were in their lives at the time of the 50th anniversary of the mission. I very much appreciated the author’s note in his own voice, how he was inspired to write this book. Kurson’s research is extensive including time spent with Borman, Lovell, Anders , people from NASA, reading a multitude of documents, watching videos and so much more. This is a story of extraordinary men and their families, an extraordinary event in history. The narration by Ray Porter is absolutely wonderful. I just purchased a hard copy for my husband.
... is another amazingly well-written book by one of my favorite authors, Robert Kurson
Rocket Men is another amazingly well-written book by one of my favorite authors, Robert Kurson. I have now read all of his books and so enjoy the detailed and suspenseful stories of important people and historical times that he chooses to focus on. He couldn't have selected a more interesting subject than Apollo 8 and America in 1968. I grew up during the race to space and getting to relive both the story of Apollo 8 and one of the most traumatic years in American history brought back many memories of a very different time in American history. Unfortunately, I read the book in two days so I am challenging Robert to get his next book out soon. Also, while I buy most of my books on Kindle, I always order hard copies of Robert's books so I can put them with my other cherished books in my library. Thanks for delivering an outstanding product again.
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