by Buzz Aldrin
First published 1989
Buzz Aldrin takes readers inside America's desperate competition with the Soviet Union to reach the moon first. The astronaut who walked on the Sea of Tranquility alongside Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969, reveals the technical challenges and political pressures that drove the Apollo program. Aldrin chronicles the development of spacecraft, the selection and training of crews, and the series of missions that built toward the historic landing witnessed by the largest television audience in history. The account spans from the early space race through the successful Apollo 11 mission, then looks ahead to potential space exploration through 2009. Aldrin writes with the authority of someone who lived these events, offering details that only an insider could provide about humanity's first steps on another world.
Genres: history, science, 20th-century, adventure, non-fiction, biography-memoir, 21st-century, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: first-person-account, insider-perspective
Setting: Sea of Tranquility, Soviet Union
Period: 1960s, 1969
312 pages · Hardcover · Bantam