The exciting and inspiring true story of Apollo 8, the first crewed
spaceship to break free of the Earth's orbit and reach the moon, by the
best-selling author of Apollo 13.
What's more exciting than spaceships and astronauts? How about a
spaceship carrying the first astronauts ever to see the moon
firsthand--on Christmas!
The year was 1968, and the American people were still reeling from the
spacecraft fire that killed the Apollo 1 crew a year earlier. On top of
that, there were rumors that the Russian cosmonauts were getting ready
to fly around the moon. NASA realized that they needed to take a bold
step--and that they needed to take it now. They wanted to win the space
race against Russia and hold true to President Kennedy's promise to put
a man on the moon by the end of the decade. So in a risky move, a few
days before Christmas of that year, they sent Frank Borman, Jim Lovell,
and Bill Anders to the moon!
This book about the exciting and inspiring true story of Apollo 8, the
first crewed spaceship to break free of Earth's orbit and reach the
moon, tells the story of these three brave men, the frantic rush to get
their rocket ready, and the journey that gave the American people--and
the world--a new look at the planet we live on and the corner of space
we inhabit.
Filled with the science and training required to put a person into
space, and every detail of what it's like to live in a spaceship for
days on end (including what happens when astronauts need to use the
bathroom), this book is sure to leave kids clamoring for a spot on the
next mission to outer space.
