In the Shadow of the Moon: A Challenging Journey to Tranquility, 1965–1969 (review)

French and Burgess have added yet another book to the enormous literature on the Space Race. Based partly on oral history interviews and partly on written and e-mailed statements and other documents, In the Shadow of the Moon focuses on the American side of the second half of the Space Race. (French and Burgess dealt with the first half of the Space Race in a previous work, Into that Silent Sea.)

Between March 1965 and July 1969, the U.S. launched fifteen manned space missions. In four years and four months, NASA went from launching its first two-person spacecraft to the first manned lunar landing. The book is largely a chronological narrative of that extraordinary time.

The first three chapters take the reader through the Gemini program, the series of ten two-man spaceflights that tested many key technologies for the subsequent lunar landings. The technical descriptions of what happened on each mission are quite detailed, but In the Shadow of the Moon is still very much a story about the people and not the machines. That said, the authors do not attempt to define every technical term used in the book, so readers with no previous knowledge of space technology may find themselves having to stop and look things up in dictionaries or reference books.

Unsurprisingly, the primary human focus of the book is the astronauts. Although the authors acknowledge that as a group the early astronauts have already been extensively interviewed, French and Burgess did about a dozen of their own astronaut interviews for the book. In the Shadow of the Moon also makes use of interviews done by the NASA oral history program and other space historians.

The astronaut interviews contain some real gems, ideas, and recollections that are otherwise unlikely to have entered the historical record. For example, Harrison Schmitt, a geologist who flew on the last Apollo lunar mission in 1972, asserts that “if there was one enabling technology for what we did scientifically and in terms of exploration on the moon, it was water-cooled underwear” (103). Although the comment seems silly, it is supported by a lengthy discussion of a disastrous spacewalk in an air-cooled space suit on the Gemini 9 mission.

Other surprising astronaut statements include Buzz Aldrin’s characterization of getting a flight assignment because of the plane crash deaths of two other astronauts as “a very, very … enabling turn of events” (126) and Neil Armstrong allegedly saying, “God knows why they’re making such a big deal out of this” after the astronauts’ nurse told him about the enormous crowd assembling to watch the Apollo 11 launch (392).

The astronauts receive far more attention than the thousands of ground personnel involved in the space effort, but In the Shadow of the Moon does not ignore these other voices. The best use of such narratives is in chapter 4, which is largely about the Apollo 1 accident, a ground training exercise that went horribly awry and ended with the deaths of three astronauts in a spacecraft fire. Several pages of text describing the facts of the accident are followed by the recollections of eleven people who were connected with the tragedy, ranging from launch site staff members to the astronauts’ secretary.

The recollections, which are taken from oral history interviews and e-mails and letters to the authors, are absolutely fascinating and are one of the highlights of the book. The written recollections are not oral history per se, but the excerpts chosen for inclusion in the book have a decidedly oral feel to them.

Paul Haney, a NASA public affairs officer who helped write the press release announcing the astronauts’ deaths and had listened to a recording of their final moments, wrote this about an encounter with NASA administrator James Webb just before the men’s funerals: He wanted to be assured that...