Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon

On May 20, 1969, the largest rocket ever built—the 30-story-tall Saturn V super-heavy launch vehicle, with the Apollo manned spacecraft atop it—rolled out of the Merritt Island Spacecraft Assembly Building. The entire system contained 6 million parts, meaning that even with 99.9 percent reliability, up to 6,000 of them could fail. A million spectators gathered nearby at Cape Canaveral, and nearly a billion more watched the launch on television, and finally at 9:32 a.m., the rocket lifted off, sending three astronauts—Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins—on the first trip to the moon.

Drawing on countless interviews, 23,000 pages of eyewitness accounts, and declassified CIA documents about the space race, American historian Craig Nelson offers the most comprehensive account of the mission to date. Apollo 11 is a dramatic chronicle of one of the greatest achievements in human history, revealing the historical, cultural, and scientific conditions that made it possible. It is a book that inspires pride in what humans can do, despite almost insurmountable obstacles.

A New York Times bestseller.