Footprints on the Moon

Barbour, an Associated Press reporter, trace the tiny footsteps humanity took in reaching the "moon" goal, from the tiny agency NACA to its repositioning as NASA in the late '50s. From Eisenhower's relative indifference to Kennedy's public passion to beat the Soviets at their own game, and finally to Johnson's funding of NASA that produced victory in Nixon's presidency. NASA grew from an idea in the minds of a few rocket scientists to a full-blown agency with a mission that had as much to do with politics as it did science. Barbour shows the agency's warts and all as it measures success upon the hunched shoulders of failure: Vanguard, the little satellite that couldn't; Jupiter, the little rocket that could; Apollo 1, the launch pad capsule malfunction that resulted in the first multiple man loss for the US Space Program; Apollo 11, which vindicated that painful loss by succeeding in NASA's ultimate goals on every level.