Includes bibliographical references (pages 191-193) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:
NASA lifts off: the 1950s -- Project Mercury: setting the sights -- Project Gemini: a bridge to the Moon -- Apollo 1: lives in eclipse -- Apollo before the Moon: into the light -- Apollo 11: life on an ancient world -- Apollo 12 and Apollo 13: storms in space -- Before the short day ends: Apollo in twilight -- Skylab: a place in space -- Apollo-Soyuz test project: a handshake across the heavens -- The 1970s: journeys without and within -- Echoes: the Shuttle era and beyond -- The first era in space, 1957-1975.
Summary, etc.:
"Walsh's narrative begins just before the Mercury program, covers the original seven astronauts, the Gemini and Apollo programs, through Skylab and up to the space shuttle. The glories and emotion of space exploration are presented against the backdrop of the Cold War, the presidential administrations of Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, and Carter, and other significant events in U.S. history. The positive accomplishments of the astronauts are placed in the context of an increasingly negative domestic situation in the 1960s and 1970s, the Bay of Pigs, civil rights, assassinations, growing involvement in and dissension about Vietnam, the Watergate scandal, and Nixon's resignation"--Jacket.