A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts

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Penguin Books Limited, 2009 - Biography & Autobiography - 670 pages

The race to the moon was won spectacularly by Apollo 11 on 20 July 1969. When astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took their 'giant step' across a ghostly lunar landscape, they were watched by some 600 million people on Earth 250,000 miles away.

'A Man on the Moon' is the definitive account of the heroic Apollo programme: from the tragedy of the fire in Apollo 1 during a simulated launch, through the euphoria of the first moonwalk, to the discoveries made by the first scientist in space aboard Apollo 17. Drawing on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with the astronauts and team, this is the story of the twentieth century's greatest human achievement, minute-by-minute, in the words of those who were there.

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About the author (2009)

Born in 1956, Andrew Chaikin grew up in Great Neck, New York, with a fascination for the heavens and space exploration. While studying geology at Brown University he participated in the Viking mission to Mars at the N A S A/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He has worked as a researcher, editor, writer, commentator and television consultant. A Man on the Moon is the result of eight years' research and writing, including interviews with each of the twenty-three surviving Apollo voyagers. Chaikin lives in Arlington, Massachusetts.