“How We Got to the Moon”, out today (Oct. 6) peels back the curtain to expose the true story of NASA’s Apollo program and how people from all walks of life worked together to accomplish the impossible.
The book takes an immersive approach to NASA’s “moonshot” Apollo program, exploring the science behind the Apollo 11 journey and introducing some of the people who made the first crewed moon landing possible.
“I wanted to make a book that I would have loved as a kid as a kid … and even as an adult,” Rocco told Space.com. He marveled that NASA’s Apollo 11 team landed humans on the moon “with the lack of technology that we have today. And just kind of through sheer grit, determination and cleverness, figured out how to do this amazing thing.”
Stretching all the way from Sputnik to the Apollo 11 launch, the book encompasses history, science and storytelling, Rocco said. In addition to exploring the history of the first moon landing and the people who made it happen, Rocco also wanted to give important scientific context for readers so that, by the end of the book, they had a real idea of how the moon landings were accomplished. The book visually explains concepts like gravity, how rockets launch, Newton’s laws of motion and more.
While many of the scientific details of humanity’s voyage to the moon are pretty complicated, Rocco worked to break down even the most technical aspects of Apollo 11 for his audience.
“For young readers, it gets completely lost,” he said of the science behind spaceflight. “When you’re talking about things like orbital mechanics and trajectories and heat transfer, you know, thermodynamics, all that stuff can glaze people over pretty quickly, unless they’re engineers, or chemists and scientists. And so I wanted to present this information in a way that’s accessible.”
Gallery: Best space and sci-fi books for 2020 (Space)
Best space and sci-fi books for 2020
There are plenty of great books out there about space — so many, in fact, that it can feel a little overwhelming to figure out where to start, whether searching for a perfect gift or your next engrossing read. So the editors and writers at Space.com have put together a list of their favorite books about the universe. These are the books that we love — the ones that informed us, entertained us and inspired us. We hope they’ll do the same for you!
“The Relentless Moon” (Tor, 2020)
Author: Mary Robinette Kowal
Mary Robinette Kowal’s Lady Astronaut series imagines what would have happened if Apollo-era spaceflight had continued at the same pace, pushed forward by the existential threat of meteor-caused climate change. This third book follows astronaut Nicole Wargin on an investigation of threats to a lunar base, exploring how life on the ground continues amid ambitious space exploration.
“The Sirens of Mars: Searching for Life on Another World” (Crown, 2020)
Author: Sarah Stewart Johnson
Planetary scientist Sarah Stewart Johnson shares the human story of the search for life on Mars in this compelling book. A host of hidden moments about scientists’ views of the Red Planet decorate the book’s pages, and Johnson explores how scientists have found and lost hope in the process of studying our nearest neighbor.
“See You in Orbit?: Our Dream of Spaceflight” (To Orbit Productions, 2019)
Author: Alan Ladwig
Alan Ladwig, a former NASA manager, dives into the promise of public spaceflight in this new book, which comes as Blue Origin, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and more take aim at private and commercial space travel.
Unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have captured the public’s attention over the decades. Rather than aliens, could those piloting UFOs be us — our future progeny that have mastered the landscape of time and space? Perhaps those reports of people coming into contact with strange beings represent our distant human descendants, returning from the future to study us in their own evolutionary past. The idea of us being them has been advanced before, but this new book takes a fresh look at this prospect, offering some thought-provoking proposals.
“They Are Already Here: UFO Culture and Why We See Saucers” (Pegasus Books, 2020)
Author: Sarah Scoles
Do you remember reading a New York Times story in 2017 that claimed to unveil a Pentagon program dedicated to investigating UFOs? Did you hear rumors about why the FBI closed a solar observatory the next year for then-undisclosed reasons? Are you confused about why there seem to be so many documentaries about alien sightings? “They Are Already Here: UFO Culture and Why We See Saucers” by freelance journalist Sarah Scoles, tackles these questions and many more.
“The Andromeda Evolution” (Harper, 2019)
Author: Daniel H. Wilson
There’s finally a sequel to Michael Crichton’s 1969 classic about extraterrestrial life trying to take over humanity from, of all places, Arizona. In “The Andromeda Evolution,” author Daniel H. Wilson continues Crichton’s work and brings the terrifying tale into outer space.
“For Small Creatures Such As We” (G.P Putnam’s Sons, 2019)
Author: Sasha Sagan
In her new book “For Small Creatures Such as We,” Sasha Sagan, daughter of “Cosmos” co-writer Ann Druyan and famed astronomer Carl Sagan, dives into the secular side of spirituality. Upon starting a family of her own, Sagan wanted to have rituals and traditions that would bond them together. But being non-religious, she reevaluated what these traditions could be and this book explores how rituals like holidays can be inspired by the “magic” of nature, space and science rather than religion.
“Dr. Space Junk Vs. the Universe” (MIT Press, 2019)
Author: Alice Gorma
What happens to satellites when they die, and come to think of it, when do they die? Alice Gorman is an Australian archaeologist who studies objects related to spaceflight, and what we can learn by thinking about space through the lens of archaeology. Her book is an engaging story of the ways being human shapes how we go to space. From Aboriginal songs tucked on the Voyagers’ Golden Records to the importance of the size of a spacecraft, Gorman offers a new perspective on the history — and future — of space.
Although many believe that the quantum-mechanics revolution of the 1920s is settled science, Lee Smolin wants to disrupt that assumption. Smolin, a theoretical physicist based at the Perimeter Institute in Toronto, argues that quantum mechanics is incomplete. The standard quantum model only allows us to know the position or trajectory of a subatomic particle — not both at the same time. Smolin has spent his career looking to “complete” quantum physics in a way that allows us to know both pieces of information. Smolin’s very engaging new book, “Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution,” offers this unique perspective honed through four decades at the forefront of theoretical physics.
“Apollo’s Legacy” (Smithsonian Books, 2019)
Author: Roger Launius
How do we understand a transformative event like the Apollo missions to the moon? Many present it as proof of American ingenuity and success, but there’s much more to the story. In “Apollo’s Legacy: Perspectives on the Moon Landings,” space historian Roger Launius probes the impacts Apollo had technologically, scientifically and politically, as well as analyzing what we can draw from it to understand the country’s modern space program. The slim volume is written as a scholarly text, but it’s accessible to anybody with an interest in space history and the circumstances that spawned Apollo.
“Finding Our Place in the Universe” (MIT Press, 2019)
Author: Hélène Courtois
In “Finding Our Place in the Universe,” French astrophysicist Helene Courtois describes the invigorating quest to discover the Milky Way’s home. In 2014 Courtois was part of a research team that discovered the galactic supercluster which contains the Milky Way, which they named Laniakea. This means “immeasurable heaven” in Hawaiian.
In this engaging and fast paced book, Courtois describes her own journey in astrophysics and highlights the key contributions of numerous female astrophysicists. The reader is right there with her as Courtois travels to the world’s leading observatories in pursuit of Laniakea, and it’s easy to see why the challenge of discovering our galaxy’s home became so seductive. Readers who want them will learn all the scientific and technical details needed to understand the discovery of Laniakea, but it’s also possible to enjoy this book as a pure tale of adventure.
“The Girl Who Named Pluto” (Schwartz & Wade, 2019)
Author: Alice B. McGinty Illustrated by: Elizabeth Haidle
How did an 11-year-old English schoolgirl come to name Pluto? In “The Girl Who Named Pluto: The Story of Venetia Burney,” Alice B. McGinty recounts one child’s history-making turn on a fateful morning in 1930. Although the book is aimed at kids ages 4 to 8, there’s plenty for older children to connect with as well. And the vintage-flavored illustrations by Elizabeth Haidle make the experience a visual delight.
Venetia had connected her love of mythology with her knowledge of science to christen the new planet after the Roman god of the underworld, refusing to let her age or gender to hold her back.
McGinley says she hopes Venetia’s tale inspires her readers — girls, in particular. “I hope girls read it and feel empowered to be part of the scientific process,” she said. “I hope boys read it and feel empowered, too, and understand how important girls are to science.”
“Delta-v” (Dutton, 2019)
Author: Daniel Suarez
In “Delta-v,” an unpredictable billionaire recruits an adventurous cave diver to join the first-ever effort to mine an asteroid. The crew’s target is asteroid Ryugu, which in real life Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft has been exploring since June 2018. From the use of actual trajectories in space and scientific accuracy, to the title itself, Delta-v — the engineering term for exactly how much energy is expended performing a maneuver or reaching a target — Suarez pulls true-to-life details into describing the exciting and perilous mission. The reward for successful asteroid mining is incredible, but the cost could be devastating.
Because Rocco is an award-winning illustrator, one of the most obvious facets of “How We Got to the Moon” is the beautiful illustrations that grace every page. These drawings show, through detail and artistry, everything from the components of rockets to the many faces of NASA’s Apollo program.
Rocco made sure to include a wide variety of people in the book, incorporating both famous faces and those who, while not household names, were vital members of the mission team. Their faces grace the pages of the book and it’s exciting not just pointing out and finding familiar faces, but also getting to know those behind the scenes.
Such characters include the women who trained as part of the “Woman in Space” program, Belka and Strelka (two dogs who flew as part of the Soviet space program), geologist Farouk El-Baz who helped to plan the exploration of the moon as part of Apollo, project engineer Dorothy B. “Dottie” Lee who worked on the Command Module heat shield, spacesuit seamstresses, flight crew equipment engineer Ann D. Montgomery as well as mathematician Katherine Johnson, whose inclusion in the 2016 hit book and film “Hidden Figures” brought her story to light.
One detail that Rocco did not include, in explaining space travel pioneer Wernher von Braun’s contributions to human spaceflight and rocket technology, was von Braun’s relationship with the Nazi party. For a period of time, von Braun worked in Nazi Germany’s rocket development program. “At the end of the day, I felt like it was a distraction,” from the main story, Rocco said.
From the horse’s mouth
Rocco pulled from five decades of records stemming from the 1969 mission, but he didn’t just rely on existing documentation. He also reached out to people who worked on the mission and spoke with them, getting their firsthand account of what it was really like working to land the first humans on the moon.
The first person Rocco spoke with was Don Rethke, known as “Dr. Flush,” who helped to create the first-ever space toilet for the Apollo program. Rethke showed his personal collection of Apollo gear to Rocco, telling him all the ins and out of how he contributed to the Apollo program and explaining how the Apollo 11 life support system worked.
Rocco found the experience so powerful that he decided to keep reaching out to Apollo engineers and personnel to learn the details of their lives and work at NASA. “I reached out to as many people as I could, as I was reading these stories and uncovering stories, and talking to them firsthand,” Rocco said. Ultimately, Rocco was in contact with nearly 30 Apollo personnel, he added.
“By the time I started the second draft of my book, I had two dozen plus engineers on speed dial,” Rocco said. He added that not only were the engineers he interviewed for the book helpful in putting the pieces of history together, in explaining the technical details of the mission to Rocco, they helped him to understand how the mission came to be on a deeper level.
Email Chelsea Gohd at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
